I did this little exercise in the Denver airport on the way home from a ski trip. I was walking through the concourse to get to my gate, in a sea of other people doing mostly the same. I would keep my eyes looking ahead and try and allow myself to notice everything. So instead of my usual walking and looking at the strange people, pretty girls, seeing nice clothes, ugly clothes, thinking about my trip, etc. which is my usual thought running its course. I restrained from that usual thinking, the best I could. Obviously it came up. When it did, I would recognize it then let go of it. So I kept coming back to just keeping my eyes ahead and seeing all the movements out of all areas of my eyes without tying a story aka a new thought pattern to what I was seeing. My awareness would expand and I started to see a bigger picture like a wave of people and a synchronous movement of large groups. I started move with them as a needed with effortlessness, like a well trained swimmer. I got little highs from the intoxication of uncertainty – since I was so tuned in to the constant subtle change. It was a practice of no effort or no thought or no judgment, yet high awareness. An exercise of surrendering to thought yet staying aware of what was ahead and the constant change of it. It was really beautiful for me. You can practice this on a walk drive or I suppose anywhere. When the mind’s thought movement is limited, this opens the mind to witness real life and the constant and subtle change of it around us and inside us .So my bodily sensations were heightened. It was as if I was on drugs. Thought typically blocks or prevents new sources. Thought is familiar to us. No thought is unfamiliar. See people will panic when they do a mediation or get bored, because they are so connected to thought. When their thought pattern is interrupted they become confused. And if they don’t let go of thought pattern, then they just get bored. Sports and the arts (and yoga – especially REWILD) I believe open this part of mind, without us really knowing it or putting it to words like I am.
See you get this same thing when you ski through trees or a new path. See I think we can create this joy in everyday living in everything we do. If we allow for the uncertainty to exist. Which is to say, be without thought. Not clinging.
