[Photo: ‘Unstructuring’ by Alexas_Fotos – Pixabay]
In preparation for an upcoming Full Presence Mindfulness course, I was working with a practice that involves the stories, and how the ‘self’ continuously narrates experience, and how we accept the stories as valid, and then we live our lives within those stories.
LOK Ex 13 – Inventing the Past
Focus on the memory of a specific event, either ‘routine’ or emotionally charged. Trace the future that developed out of that remembered event. Experiment with ways to ‘strip away’ this future, for example, by ‘transporting yourself’ directly to the past event, or by making the same journey sequentially, ‘dropping’ subsequent memories as you go. In doing the exercise, also pay attention to the evidence meant to validate the accuracy of what is remembered.
…’Love of Knowledge’, by Tarthang Tulku, p. 107
My Practice Notes –
Remembering back 17 years ago to my retirement from managing large commercial facilities, and the future that led to today, just sitting on the back porch looking out over the Spring field revealing new growth… I am recalling all that ensued. And I begin to strip away the unfolding events since retiring that led up to this moment. I see it all as a structuring of events, associations and judgments put together… a formulation of my own making. If I let it all go, [the whole ball of yarn, the tapestry of stories upon stories, and so on…] I feel weightless, my story of unfolding self dissolves into a full but buoyant freedom in the present moment… sensitive and healing space… open at the edge of the future…