Thread for Monja Gitana

[Monja gitana]

Buenos MB, what naturally happens when I sit to do the exercise is I have an awareness of sensations in my body, the contact its is making with the chair and floor, the pain in my guts, sounds, paper being shuffled in the next room, garbage being emptied in the street, cars honking. When looking at the object in front of me which is a plant my sense is there is an object, there is seeing and I'm seeing it. I also have a sense of it all just happening.
When I was scrubbing the floors the other day there was just scrubbing with nothing else attached to it, nothing else going on, there was just scrubbing the floor. When you ask me to do the exercises, I get anxious because I think I've got to get it right. Any suggestions? MG

[Mad biker]

Great to hear from you MG.
Say more about that pain in your guts. Is that just a current gastric upset or is it emotional?
Mb

[Monja gitana]

Oh its just a stressy thing, that comes and goes. Just a lot to sort out here in BCN but its AOK. MG

[Mad biker]

When you ask me to do the exercises, I get anxious because I think I've got to get it right. Any suggestions?

Oh that just sounds like a bit of lack of self-kindness backed by our old pal FEAR, doing its sometimes uncomfortable 'job' remember? What is it protecting?

Just take another reflective look at our stuff from right at the top of page four again.

BUT BEFORE doing that, take another look at our stuff from the bottom of page one OK?

So get back into Direct Experience BEFORE looking at the fear material at the top of page four.

Do that before answering this next question OK?:

Now is the Dukkha anything more than thought and sensation?
This is not a rhetorical question it is instead an actual genuine question which I am asking you to answer after re-capping those two bits of reading. Don't try to remember that material, you will get far more from it by giving it a second reading, just go back and do it RIGHT NOW.

[Mad biker]

Just book in some time with yourself to do this. Maybe just forget setting yourself up with breathing this time? Maybe instead just put on a kettle, wait for it to boil sit down in that armchair in your new flat, with a tea or something, put your feet up for that re-reading I am asking for.

[Mad biker]

Get back to me earlier than usual sometime today if you can, OK? I would like to go a bit further with this before sundown.
Mb,x

[Monja gitana]

Hola MB, sorry I didn't get back to you before sunset yesterday. Got myself settled then a friend dropped inI then it was non stop visitors till late.

Just re read those two pieces again. Sat in a chair with a coffee and immediately felt sick in the stomach, the worst I've felt for ages and I thought I was going to vomit. I had to get up and hang out some washing to distract myself. I didn't want to give in to this so lay on my bed and got real comfy and just watched the sensations and thoughts. There was just sensation and thoughts nothing else. And I was kind to myself. MG

[Mad biker]

I had to get up and hang out some washing to distract myself. I didn't want to give in to this so lay on my bed and got real comfy and just watched the sensations and thoughts. There was just sensation and thoughts nothing else. And I was kind to myself. MG

This sounds like a really wise strategy for 'creeping up on it' so to speak!

When things get acute again as I guess 'they' might, always remember you can string out some washing, even if it is already dry! Seriously, the basic Primate that we are, quite likes stuff like that and readily 'gets' the message: Before very long (as in; real soonish) you could usefully find yourself saying;

'OK I could just go right ahead now and distract myself with that distraction singing: "When the goin' get's tough, the tough hang washing"

OR, instead I could think about just opening up to the idea of just being with this 'thing' that is arising in the sacred spirit of WTF.

Now what's it gonna be?

I have to say I really like the sound of this 'lying on the bed and just being with it' approach. Though a floor with a blanket above and below might be better bet (I've found we can more immediately relax and more fully let go let go into a firm surface, just surrendering the weight of our body to the planet)

I am very serious about everything I have said above.
Sometimes people can erroneously think that terms like 'relax' and 'let go' are nothing more than routine palliative platitudes, but nothing could be further from the truth! Instead, those very same much over-used terms, are the very deepest core pith instructions of Dzogchen/ Mahamudra. So please see them again now, as though for the first time, with 'beginners mind'. The seemingly bland instruction to 'RELAX AND LET GO' (which so many Westerners understandably miss!) really is the very deepest Tantra and is the essential key to awakening, let me assure you.

[Mad biker]

Get back to me today if you can, to keep up this momentum, as I had meant to say that your last post seems very peachy indeed!

Meanwhile, how about a bit more floor and blanket work?

OK, in Direct Experience ask yourself:

What is it that you can't be with?

Then:
Where can you feel that in your body?
What does it feel like?

Then:
Can you turn towards it or embrace it or say 'yes' to it?

Turning towards it might be the last thing you feel like doing but just LOOK at what happens when you do so

Dukkha is wishing things to be other than they now are.

Now don't be too concerned if something starts in your stomach, then rises up to the heart chakra, then throat chakra, then...gulp!
Even if you begin to find yourself panicking and saying; "OMFG I am just about to go completely NUTS here!!!" Just turn towards this in a spirit of kindly curiosity; noticing that those are just thoughts and accepting them saying something like;"OK then, lets just bloody well have it!" and just open up into what happens next.

Releases don't happen like that for everyone and it might not happen that way for you but I just wanted to tip you off about those potential dynamics. (Some folk get it while walking, driving or sleeping BTW and sometimes it just turns around really gently with lots of joyous laughter) But as there is such a decent slice of day remaining especially down there in the Med, I thought I would just pile it on a wee bit.

[Monja gitana]

Buenos MB, sorry I didn't get back to you yesterday but I was out most of the day and also have a new rule of not turning the computer on after 8pm.
My bed is actually a thin mattress on the floor at the moment so its a bit like being on the floor anyway.
When I asked myself what I couldn't be with when I layed down was knowing that next week my partner is going to meet up with the woman he had sex with before I moved here. Even though I know nothing will happen. My stomach contracted, tightness around the heart and pain in upper back, constriction in throat. I turned towards it and said yes to it. I skirmed around a bit but allowed it to come in close. Quite quickly it became very small and felt insignificant. I relaxed and felt bigger than this thing. MG

[Mad biker]

Computer has gone down the toilet so working on iPad shitty keyboard, hence shitty truncated sentences! but hoping you will tune in despite new 8pm curfew to read this.

Great news in your last post. Yes of course 'nothing will happen' funny how we can know nothing will happen and yet there can still be that load of stuff coming up. You did very very well with it. I now want to ask you to do the same thing again. Is that dukkha really anything more than sensations and thoughts?

More tomorrow lunch time from comp at wrk with full sentence
Mb

[Mad biker]

Hey I got the computer working again! So get back to me in the morning and I will get back to you in the morning too! I will look in here again before work.
Mb

[Monja gitana]

Yehhhh, your computer is working!!

Just laid down on my bed and relaxed and felt the sensations and watched the thoughts. The dukkha that was there was an old one, I'm failing at this, I've been at it for 20 years and have got nowhere. Usual sensations in my body of anxiety, churned stomach and general sense of unease. A thought arose, ahh I've just put a load of washing on and I could go and check if its finished and hang it out and then I wouldn't have to feel this. But I stayed and let in in closer and then my body felt tingly all over and another thought arose, there's nothing to fail and no one to fail and that made me laugh.
Similar thing happened in meditation this morning. I'm reading Touching Enlightenment by Reggie Ray which I'm finding helpful.
Yesterday I realised that the dukkha around the stuff with my partner had lost its grip after I'd done the exercise. I checked in with myself a few times during the day and it remained quite insignificant.
Tengas un buen dia. MG

[Mad biker]

More probs hence iPhone again! Yes Touching Enlightenment is a very very important book. A real dharma door. What was it you were at for twenty years and got nowhere?

[Monja gitana]

Meditation