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, experiencer? Eyes that feel? ... 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 incredible 'exercize'... taking the time to just relax with the appearances of people (observations re mall) Summarizing:
I looked for joy and happiness in every little picture, and the setting softened. 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 at a wild ride we're on, and how much there is to notice. Dwelling os not only particular kinds of things, but also on the settings.. endless. 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. We first spent time walking some of the garden areas, and talking 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... like the softest paper...   

We took a trolley tour, and though the guide taught quickly, we were exhilarated trying to keep one another up. Little by little we became comfortable, and our sharing, open. 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. A funny moment for two strangers. The day took on a distinct kind of rhythm and even things like timing and weather seemed to conspire. 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. :)   

2/7/10

There is a guidance given sometimes when beginning to meditate, to ask oneself questions like 'what color is mind, what shape', and while I have never really found that useful, I wanted to make a note of falling asleep last night, and noticing first a bright teal color which changed and moved and seemed to cause 'mind' to stretch farther than it first seemed to. Mind, when I closed my eyes had been like a dome or cave, but seeing the teal, the boundary was just *not* ... was more of an open screen. Noticing the teal, there came the deep blue that I've been drawn to as long as I can remember... in bursts and sparks... then settling. Then just as there was no color and I wanted to fall asleep, a deep red began to seep through. At some point I began to see a kind of flow or partitions... like a diamond view where water is flowing left, but in front of that right, but in front of that backwards and then forwards, yet seeing them together it made sense.

I guess I was just playing, but the effect of the play was a sense of letting in the unexpected... letting "imagination" be even more flexible/ permeated.

2/11/10

For a few days I've been noticing that sensations I normally bundle together have taken on more space, naturally. The first time I was waking and heard talking going on in the kitchen and without trying the sounds and the talking felt to unwravel from each other a bit. Then there were little moments like this which I wasn't exactly conscious of but felt I was beginning to be. Yesterday, first in the shower where without intending I noticed 'hot' separating itself from the water. After, I dove into a bit of reading, in prep for Time workshop. In between the reading and the workshop, I stood outside in the breeze, to wait for my son who now likes to walk part way home from school. It was a little chilly, and I felt the cold as very distinct from the breeze, as distinct from an underlayer of the sun's warmth, as distinct from my skin, as distinct from many other perceptions. Things took on a sheerness which allowed me to experience the in-between freshness in a very 'alive' kind of way.

Today, I sent out in colder-than-usual weather, to take a long walk. I resisted the urge to wear a jacket... just wanted to dive into the weather and 'notice what I notice'd. It was similar... fresh and light and I with a great sense of the world beneath my feet .. as though I could feel my feet walking along the ground as the ground...

The exercize extended itself organically into what I was considering, also, as I saw that I could appreciate and see that the appreciation was/is separate from wanting to 'keep' what I appreciate. It was an interesting thing to think that self can turn appreciation into a doing and solidifying thing.       

2/24/10

I came away from Time Workshop today having talked about not holding onto insights/fear/worries/ dreams/validations/insults/etc., and appreciated that sharing itself is a kind of offering up, too... though maybe doing so becomes more and more refined as one is not the center of the sharing? Then there is *just* the sharing?   

There truly can be no formulas. The experience of sharing can be 'pure' for want of a better word, in the same way as the moment. Letting 'be' appreciation...

My son, on our little walk home today, showed me how to run through deepish puddles without making a splash. It was fascinating to watch. He's worked on walking without sound for a while, but this I thought was new. He tells me he's been doing this since he was six but never thought to show me before. For me it was a pebble/little bird moment.