Notes on Apapb

First, a quote shared by Eos:

"If the meditator is able to use whatever occurs in his life as the Path, his body becomes a retreat hut." Jigme Lingpa 

It took quite a while before I felt as though I was working at all, with appreciating the presence of appearance as a presentation by/of being", and certainly a while before the exercize began to open up as having to do with all of appearance, all of the time. I am slowly but surely developing a rather intuitive trust in a 'process' that  finds unfolding layers and pages and sheets and sensations now ... spontaneously engaging apapb.

Whether I can articulate notes to share? We'll see :) What I'd like to do here, is relate the more recent notes taken, and gather notes on earlier explorations, on a page attached to this one. 

2009/12/18 - Appearing to hear the rain.. (notes scribbled in the night) 

The sound seems to dissolve partitions... the idea of outside/inside. I let it.
i am not feeling the rain with my hands or my body, but this i'd see as a feeling experience. how so?  It seems mere memory of feeling of water whose falling calls it rain. i feel... where? hitting the ground? thump. thump. The "coolness of the pool" feeling, with the layers of ideas and pictures of things i thought cool... in other sometimes. Is it all 'just' memory and memory 'just' texture? of what. does it need to be of something? 

Noticing components distance dissolves. innumerable sensations... but are any of them 'water'? 'rain'? there is obviously no texture in the texture... If I taste it, the texture seems already memory, too... all memory ... thin thin, transparent, warping almost. dream being? glowy. 

In a dream, often just before one wakes up, things start looking obviousy squidgy. 

--So, i was first swept up into the sound of the rain, and began 'automatically 'peeling back the textures of what is memory, and what is water, and what is the dynamic at play, what IS experience... layers between
actually touching or false partitions that are in the way and also the way to experience...

Still illusive to articulate, but fun.

12/8 - In which I cope with the mall using a light form, I'd say, of apapb...

APAPB- People watching is an incredibe 'exercize'... taking the time to just relax with the appearances of people walking with families, how they hold themselves, pull their clothing together...(observations re mall) So, summarizing:
I found a bit of joy and happiness in every little picture, and the setting itself softened a bit. It was still a mall.
And I didn't find the enthusiasm enough to actually buy anything beyond the green tea latte. I did come out with a kind of pleasure though, at the wild ride we're all on, and just how much there is to notice. Dwelling is not only on a particular kind of thing, but also on a setting, and really seems endless, like there is a way to unfold more and more attentively without taking away from time at all to do so. 

12/23 -Setting the Stage   

Appreciation as 'group activity' with others can be a very powerful thing. This day I spent first at pab, then at a garden event with my children and another mom I'd not met before. Not knowing one another, we first spent time walking some of the garden areas, and talking just about the things we were seeing. She was tactile, and her touching things encouraged me to touch them too... noticing that some things, like these massive cone-like fruits we found, felt completely different than our memory/expectation would suggest.

We took a trolley tour, and though the guide taught so quickly, there was a feel of exhileration as we tried to keep one another up. Little by little we became comfortable, and our sharing became more open. Newly divorced and recently without her parents, she seemed to appreciate a friend who didn't have familiar ties to talk to. 39 and wondering what the 'next step' is, I appreciated her stories of going into acting at 40 and the adventures she's been embracing.

The thing is, after a while, I began to wonder at the overlaps between us, and with the ease that was developing. When we rode through an area of bamboo for instance, there was a gust of wind which caused me to shush everyone and we both closed our eyes, smiling. The day took on a distinct kind of rhythm and even things like timing and weather seemed to conspire to validate our time together. It felt like a stolen moment amidst the holiday hoopla.

Before we left, we ducked into an office which had bins and bins of "free books". I found nothing really of interest, but she found two books among the hundreds, and we headed back to the entrance to meet the kids. As we are waiting, a man walks up to my new friend and says "Hello", and she begins scrambling at who he might be "Dave?" "Steve?" He and his companion laugh. He is the author of the book she is carrying! He is from San Francisco. His companion notes that she's a character in the book, and he signs it. My new friend leaves the event in a bit of a state of wonder. It was nice. :)