Meditation

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<div class="5pcp _5lel"><a class="5pcq" href="https://www.facebook.com/bill.joslin/posts/10155315445336422" target=""><abbr title="Tuesday, July 11, 2017 at 9:34am" data-utime="1499790866" data-shorten="1" class="_5ptz">July 11 at 9:34am</abbr></a> ·

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<p>Written for a friend: meditation related

The notion of using breath to build concentration is popular because it is easy but has some flaws.

The notion behind these techniques stems from knowledge that some body systems are automatic, which we have little control over (heartbeat, blood flow etc), other systems are completely with in our control like moving our hands, and some systems can be both. Breathing is like this last one. It is predominantly automatic but we can make it intebtional as well.</p>

<p>With these types of systems the automatic operation can give clues to little or not noticed changes/reactions we have that we are seldom aware of. By working with those systems we build up a baseline of awareness of the system so when it changes we become alerted to the change...thus expanding awareness into nuances unavailable before.

For example our breathing will change rythm under stress before we are aware of being stressed. If we catch the this stress early, when it effects the breath , we can address the stress (relax) before it takes hold and interferes with perception.

The issue with breath techniques is it can drive tension into the body.

Think of it this way, if you shrug your shoulder, tense your shoulders, often, eventually he baseline level of tension in the shoulder muscles will increase over time. Breathing technique can add tension into the diaphragm which then interferes with the nature movement of your organs below the diaphragm. It also causes a slight, preconscious preoccupation with breathing rythm which interferes with breathing. Not to fear monger, it can take a decade or so for these things to become a problem.

The last reason I don't recommend breathing techniques has to do with what drives changes in awareness via these techniques. Breathing focuses on the tactile sense of the body, where the active component in changes from meditation stems from proprioception, vestibular, and eyesight - specifically where these three intersect as they are all tightly coupled.

So what I recommend for an object of awareness (focal point or anchor) is awareness itself. Use then envelope of immediate awareness as the anchor to work with.

So I'll give a couple doorways into this, meaning starting points but the following are mean to be combined. And after that what next steps can be taken once you've normalized to the technique and adjunct practices you can do to help you along the way.

1) wide-angle vision. This is the use of peripheral vision as an anchor. But I don't use that term because it is not a change in eye focus but rather a shift in what you are aware of (in awareness not in the eyes). Whatever you are doing, and the key is to try and be doing this all the time. Be aware of what is going on at the periphery of your Feild of vision. Not to the point that your are changing the focus of your eyes, or distraction attention away from what you are doing. Do this very lightly, with the least amount of effort possible. You'll forget often, when you remember just start it up again, overtime the habit will form. And not too much effort. The effort will drive tension into the muscles above the jaw and in the temples. The lighter the better. Just enough for it to not drive away.

2) hearing. If you find you are focussing too much on the eyes or your have muscular reactions when doing the wide angle vision. Then begin with or do this. Always keep a portion of your awareness on background sounds. If you shift the attention on your listening to ambient sounds around you, you'll find yourself naturally doing wide-angle vision. If not then listen to what is going on behind you. Again you are doing this all the time, while working, in meeting etc. So very lightly, least amount of attention you can offer up without reducing awareness on what your are doibg, but not so little that it fades out.

3) tactile - hands. We offer far more effort into physical movement then what is necessary and often have little awareness of our movements. So this is about putting attention into physical movement.

We'll reach for a door handle or pick up a pen with very little deliberate attention. So the idea hear is to pay attention to your hands when you are using them. When you reach for the door handle, pay attention to all the sensations and feel of your hand. When you normalize to this the. Start doing these actions with the least amount of effort possible without modifying the action. What you're doing here is taking the wasted effort, the excess effort we normally put into these actions and converting it to awareness (a metaphor).

4) dead-reckoning. When you are walking down a hallway or down the sidewalk. As you approach and pass an object, like a door or lamp post... As you approach the object get a sense of its position and location relative to you. Keep that sense of spatial relationships to you in mind as you pass by the object. And keep that sense of location even after it is behind you. Use as many sense as you like to anchor into the object. Eyesight at first, then it moves into peripheral sight, then listen if feel it in your shoulder or back as you've passed it. Then pick another object infront of you and do it again. A bit like spiderman shooting a web out to a building, swinging past, then shooting out another web.

This how to tie proprioception into other senses and bring that activity up into the baseline of awareness

5) tactile body- while your are listening or doing wide angle - if you notice undue tension in the body, a muslce flexed slightly, or a tightening somewhere, relax it. Relax into the awareness. This will bring into baseline awareness those automotive reactions which preceded conscious thought. Over time as tension rises you'll be aware of it in your body. Ask you self what source was, what stimulated the reaction.

6) the bubble - eventually you want to be able to keep a slight bit of attention on all of these - sight, hearing body, spatial surroundings, at the same time, with the same effortlessness. When you attempt to do this you can begin with one, say sound, then add in the next and so on.

What you'll find is you can't do all of it at the same time. The mind will demand more attention to it, and will rebound from one to the other. It's because we can focussed on so many things at the same time. The trick is to make all of these ONE thing, one focal point. The idea here is to keep a portion of attention on the total envelope of sensory input. You can imagine it like walking in a bubble or caccoon. Whatever works. Generally how to combine these complex focal points is to make it like a sense of space (like what it feels like to stand in your bedroom versus on the street, there is a sense of presence of the wall, furniture etc. That sense of presence we register as one item in awareness.

If you manage this you'll find as you lose attention and start to focussed in on something, that bubble will shift move and change shape (it's not a bubble - just the envelope of awareness. Don't visualise bubble - I'm using a metaphor). The shifting around of intensity, size and shape of your immediate awareness acts like tnesons or changes in automatic systems which rise before conscious awareness, but proceed the automatic systems.

I remember whittling on my balcony. Head down, looking at the wood. I noticed a shift in attention.forward and to one-sided. This shift was noticable. When I looked up I saw a car pull out of a driveway and hit a car coming down the street. In hind sight I hear the car infront of me coming forward, and caught the car drive down the street in peripheral vision. My mind had calculated the collision, caught my attention ahead of the collision. When I looked up the car were still about twenty feet apart.

Consider intuition as preconscious processing of available data occuring outside of normal awaress. These exercises are meant to broaden normal awareness - what Ive called baseline awareness into as the subtle and nuanced attention available.

7) Adjunct exercises. It could be tough to start to merge Al these into a single technique. You can take a few minutes, find a spot where you won't be disturbed or are not occupied with other things and practice this until you get a feel for it. When by yourself on a patio having coffee r something. As people walk by, dead reckoning there location as they walk past, but also listen fr there foot steps etc. And do this while still Listening to the traffic or other patrons on the patio etc.

Think of it all, all of that sensation like a symphony. You can pick out one instrument in a symphony and listen to that, or you can listen to it as one full sound. The idea hear is to listen to the full symphony of your senses all the time.

Hope that helps

Just need to emphasize that all of this is to be done with the least amount of effort possible. Any tension, in body, breath or focus is effort and effort restricts (focuses) attention thus restricting attention. So no tension. No effort.</p>

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Meditation

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