I really enjoyed the subtle mind practice. Although I also enjoyed the loving kindness exercise, they felt very different. The loving kindness felt expansive; taking an emotion and expanding it to the universe. While the subtle mind exercise felt more narrow. I understand that once your “mind is tamed” you can relax your grip on the breath and that if you reach the unity consciousness phase the feeling of expansion may exist, but I am not at this stage.
I like the explanation about witnessing replacing gasping. I was able to practice this later in the day after listening to the tape in the morning. I felt angry over a certain situation and I caught myself being invaded by that anger. As soon as I recognized this, I felt that I was able to observe the anger instead and then figure out why that situation provoked anger inside me.
One very clear connection between spirit, mind, and body for me centers around stress. When I am regularly practicing meditation and tai chi (spirit), I feel that my mind is more clear and I am less stressed (mental and emotional), which makes my body feel healthy and relaxed. On the other hand when I let my spiritual practiced go, I am less focused (mind) and then am actually more clumsy (body). I am also more stressed (emotional) and then have tension in my body and increased cholesterol.
Sacha, I like that you talk about carrying the exercises with you throughout the day. I also experienced this. I found myself letting aimless thoughts and an image go, not attaching myself to them and was able to focus more on the days work at hand. I have always tried to take deep breaths during the day or work to tune out the chaos around me but when I do the exercises faithfully it is much easier to accomplish.
ReplyDeleteThank you
Cindy Potucek