Reflections In A Pool

“By three methods we may learn wisdom: first, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third, by experience, which is the most bitter.” -Confucius

Level I -- Transcendence: 1st Month, Day 14

Give It A Rest

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under the trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time” -John Lubbock

Level I -- Transcendence: 1st Month, Day 13
8:00AM

A New Point Of View

“To write something, you have to risk making a fool of yourself.” -Anne Rice

Level I -- Transcendence: 1st Month, Day 12
7:00AM

A Clearer View

“Perhaps our eyes need to be washed by our tears once in a while, so that we can see Life with a clearer view again.” -Alex Tan

Level I -- Transcendence: 1st Month, Day 11
7:50AM

The Spirit Is Willing

“You can lead a horse to water, but if you can get him to float on his back, you've got something” -Anon.

Level I -- Transcendence: 1st Month, Day 10
8:05AM

The Floating Water Bridge

“If you would get ahead, be a bridge” - Welsh Proverb

Level I -- Transcendence: 1st Month, Day 9
7:50AM



Physics Experiment - The Floating Water Bridge
A floating water bridge is a natural phenomenon formed when beakers of deionized water exposed to high voltages form an unsupported "liquid bridge" between the beakers.

Floating In Space

“At night, when the sky is full of stars and the sea is still you get the wonderful sensation that you are floating in space.” - Natalie Wood

Level I -- Transcendence: 1st Month, Day 8
8:55AM

A Day of Reflection

“Seeds of great discoveries are constantly floating around us, but they only take root in minds well prepared to receive them.” - Joseph Henry

To Float, Perchance To Sleep

“I slept just floating in the middle of the flight deck, the upper deck of the space shuttle. It's easy to sleep floating around - it's very comfortable.” - Sally Ride

Level I -- Transcendence: 1st Month, Day 6
8:00AM

In Deep Water

“We all are floating our psyche on top with a great ocean underneath.” - Brad Dourif

Level I -- Transcendence: 1st Month, Day 5
8:05AM

Bathing In It

“Climbing K2 or floating the Grand Canyon in an inner tube; there are some things one would rather have done than do.” - Edward Abbey

Level I -- Transcendence: 1st Month, Day 4
7:50AM

Auto-Guided Imagery

“Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.” -Rabindranath Tagore

Level I -- Transcendence: 1st Month, Day 3
Prelude:
I'm ready to start my third session of audio brainwave entrainment, so I start the CD and then settle back onto the yoga mat. I had just come back from a walk with Leslie and our dog Nikita, and it had been a good workout, so it feels good to give into the relaxing sounds of water. I have learned from the two previous days that the meditation is like a form of relief, allowing me to be able to set aside the ongoing burden of my thoughts, and spend 30 minutes letting the stillness flow through me.

Now, as I look upward to the fan spinning above me, I can perceive patterns in the movement of the blades. There are colors in between the patterns, like a motif with an embroidered edge. The shapes and hues are appearing on the ceiling and when I blink and close my eyes... they remain in place as if my eyelids were transparent. These patterns are incredibly beautiful and provoke an immediate sense of familiarity and recognition. I feel connected to them somehow.

Abstract:
The images depicted in Alex Grey's Sacred Mirrors (on display at the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors in New York City), are of human figures viewed in physical detail as well as their revealed ethereal filaments that represent the six chakras and the surrounding aura of the psychic energy system, interconnected with the rest of the universe. Grey’s work explores the subject of consciousness from the perspective of "universal beings" whose bodies are grids of fire, cosmic eyes and infinite galactic swirls.

The powerful mental function of imagination allows us to use our thoughts to accomplish things like healing and repair on the emotional level and sometimes on the physical level too. We can use our imagination to review the past or visualize possible futures, and to do things that we seem unable to do in the outer world. Our imagination is the source of creativity, and gives us the the ability to solve problems. We can plan things in our imagination and then take the steps that we imagined, to accomplish goals that we seek.

Postlude:
Because of my strong interest in investigating this powerful tool and becoming educated in its use, I have trained myself to focus my imagination and use it well. Just as Aristotle represented it as "the window to the soul", I have become aware that using my imagination for storing, processing, and retrieving information, is a completely natural process. But I'm looking for the way that leads way beyond the logical, linear thinking which is so important in normal life, and goes beyond to where Einstein envisioned it as "Imagination is more important than knowledge."

Imagination is important in healing because it seems to have a much more direct link to bodily functions than spoken words. But the use of imagery involves thinking in thoughts that have sensory qualities. These thoughts allow us to see, hear, smell, or feel inside. So by using the language of the arts --of music, poetry, drama, and the visual arts-- it's possible to imagine things that have a close relationship to emotions.

With my eyes closed, I recall a time when I felt very peaceful and quiet inside, and I imagine being there now again, and imagine seeing what I am seeing, and hearing the sounds that are here, and I feel that feeling of deep peacefulness and quiet inside, and I'm just enjoying that for a few minutes.

This is possible because of the mind/body connection, which is mediated through the limbic system or the seat of our emotions. The powers of imagination that are closely linked to healing, produce a shift in my state of being from uncomfortable anxiety and depression, to one that is quieter, happier and far more comfortable. Along with the emotional uplift, there are physiologic changes that accompany the calmer, more relaxed, and yet more energized state that follows this shift. This allows my body to focus its attention on healing rather than spending its energy combating imagined problems and worries.

My mental energy is better utilized in imagining happy, calming, encouraging, mood elevating, pain relieving, and positive thoughts that may allow physical healing as well as mental healing. I am using my imagination to escape and obtain relief for a few pleasant minutes. I am deeply relaxed, and feel a strong ability to express my feelings, and even to connect with an inner source of wisdom and healing.

Meditation as Mental Training

“The non-existent was not; the existent was not at that time. The atmosphere was not nor the heavens which are beyond. What was concealed? Where? In whose protection? Was it water? An unfathomable abyss?” -from the Rig Veda

Level I -- Transcendence: 1st Month, Day 2
Prelude:
On this, the second session of entrainment, I'm making some adjustments to the way that I arrange my environment because I want to be comfortable for the next 30 minutes. I've already done some stretching to ease the ache in my shoulders. Now I'm hoping that I can lay flat on my back and experience the floating sensations, in the most natural position that I'm able to assume. I'm even making sure to keep my arms at my sides so it'll be easy to stay relaxed throughout this morning's meditation.

Yesterday's session, introduced me to the tranquil burbling and splashing of the Level I soundscape environment, with it's richly orchestrated splashing noises. I was easily able to close my eyes and imagine that I was floating in a pool fed by many small waterfalls. In fact the sounds were amazingly complex and yet I could pick out individual "voices" that related to the tone and characteristics of each cascade. In my mind's eye, I was picturing this as a tiered, multi-step plunging series of waterfalls, flowing one after another in a descending series of plunges, each cataract into it's own pool.

Once again, my state of relaxation was quite profound. I felt buoyant, uplifted and cool all over, and at the same time, there was a sense of direction to the movement, almost as if my toes were pointing downstream, and I was moving in the direction that most of the water was going in...and I let myself sink into it.

I still had my eyes open, so at this point I closed them. But within moments, having my eyes closed was somehow allowing me to become aware of where I was in a different way. I was simultaneously aware of the flowing movement and of where I was positioned relative to the room I was in, and the room's position in this building. And once this started happening, it included all the levels above that too...

...and I was rising above my neighborhood, floating out over the city and with my new awareness, I watched the horizon expand into a curved sphere that floated below my own position. Now I was losing track of time too, and everything kept receding further and further from my mind...

Abstract:
Meditation is often associated with the ways in which the mind can apply its focus to breathing, sounds, chanting, and visualizations.

An alternate view of meditation can be construed as a form of mental un-training. No mantras or focusing on an object, so the mind can achieve a relaxed and restful state.

Tibetan meditation teacher Paltrul Rinpoche describes it this way:

All you practitioners, male and female, who wish to realize the faultless and correct point of view, should let your mind rest fully awake in a state of unfabricated emptiness. When your mind is quiet, then rest in that quietness without trying to fabricate anything. When it doesn't think, then rest in that non-thinking. In short, no matter what takes place, let your mind rest without fabricating anything.

Don't try to correct, suppress or cultivate anything.

Don't try to place your mind inwardly. Don't search for an object to meditate upon outwardly. Rest in the meditator, mind itself, without fabricating anything.

One doesn't find one's mind by searching for it. The mind itself is empty from the beginning. You don't need to search for it. It is the searcher himself. Rest undistractedly in the searcher himself.

"Have I now grasped that which should be observed?" "Is this the right way or not?" "Is this it or not?" No matter what takes place rest in the thinker himself without fabricating anything.

No matter what kind of thoughts occur, excellent or terrible, good or bad, joyful or sorrowful, don't accept or reject, but rest in the thinker himself without fabricating anything.

Postlude:
Leaving behind all of the thoughts and moving into stillness, allows me to notice where I am. With the combination of water sounds and mental stillness, I'm even starting to notice where I'm going too, just like moving in a direction that will also allow me to know why I'm going there at all. This might lead to further clues about who it is that's doing all of this. I can already tell that I'm going to like the destination when I get there.

Diving Right In and Learning To Float

“Turn off your mind. Relax, and float downstream. It is not dying.” -The Beatles

Level I -- Transcendence: 1st Month, Day 1
Prelude:
As I unroll the yoga mat and prepare to assume a comfortable position, I'm feeling excited about what I am taking on for the next 6 months. The preparation and steps leading up to what I'm about to do, have taken the same amount of time as the number of weeks that will be recorded here as part of the process. Thus begins my audio brainwave entrainment for thirty minute sessions each day, for six days a week and with one day a week off, for the next thirty days.

For this first session, I'm going to be in my office, with the phone silenced, and the computer speakers turned off, so that there are no interruptions. Leslie has taken our dog Nikita for their usual morning walk around the neighborhood, and will be gone for the next hour or so.

I've got an overhead fan blowing directly down on me, and there's a few wisps of Nag Champa incense drifting towards the open window. I push the start button on the CD player, and the room starts to fill with the sound of running water.

So to begin with, I close my eyes and try to stop. Stop what? The interior monologue that starts babbling. Thoughts which do not need to be accounted for, but which may slow me down and delay me from achieving my goals. The goals I intend to reach in order to grow.

Lesson #1: I must learn about myself to grow. I must listen to myself to learn. I must learn a very difficult thing in order to listen, and that is to stop the incessant voice in my head. Stop thinking completely.

Relax, and float downstream. It is not easy...

I tried to stop doing anything. I tried to stop thinking, and I became aware that I was starting to relax. Good. Now it was time to start breathing exercises. Inhale...count to five...then hold my breath for a count of five...then exhale for five...then hold for five more. In, hold, out, hold. Repeat.

OK, now I was starting to get somewhere. The cycles of breathing were taking on a rhythm. And all of the sudden I was floating, and it was quite pleasant...

I relaxed further and completely let go, and the sounds of water continued to flow under me, around me and over me, and finally after a while...the water flowed right through me.

Abstract:
Dr. Ainslie Meares was a psychiatrist and scholar of hypnotism. He was also a prolific author of books like "Where Magic Lies", "Strange Places and Simple Truths", "My Soul and I", and "Life Without Stress: the Self Management of Stress". Meares believed that meditation is most effective when simplified to it's most essential --nothing more than simple stillness-- rather than using mantras, or as a technique involving mechanics such as focused attention on objects.

His approach was all about stillness and relaxation, and emptying the mind of all thoughts. The major difference between classic approaches to meditation and Meares' approach, was apparently based on his emphasis on mental stillness and relaxation, as opposed to only physical relaxation. He was even known for demanding that those learning his techniques would sit in uncomfortable positions, and in addition, allow the noise of the city to come in through open windows. His teaching process showed that he wanted his students' progress to be gained from internal stillness, in spite of external influences that could create stress.

For Meares, "The key to our management of stress lies in those moments when our brain runs quietly in a way that restores harmony of function..." (Life Without Stress).

Meares describes it further in Life Without Stress, "In the meditation that I would advise you to practise there is no striving, no activity of brain function, just quietness, a stillness of effortless tranquility."

His viewpoint shows that brain functions would still be engaged even when using such classical ways of focusing attention as counting, breathing, or visualization.
For him, brain function meant the brain was engaged even when using classical ways of attention to the breath, visualization or counting.

Postlude:
Based on this approach, it would seem that the most important immediate step would be to completely let go. This would mean letting go of any expectations, and letting go of any thoughts that might arise as this progressed. I could tell that the stillness would come in little bits, and then increase to longer amounts, and continue until the stillness took the place of any need to assess anything about myself or about the process. In Meares' words "just being" rather than being about the experience or otherwise engaging the mind. Instead, what was most important was to relax the brain, in order to relax the mind itself.

I had just experienced the kind of meditation that entirely stilled my mind for at least twenty minutes. By this first step I had already found a benefit from feeling rested in several areas of my body, and my mind was certainly functioning with great clarity and precision. I was impressed. This was inspiring, and I had to write down a few things right away, but I was ready to go back to the outer world. And more importantly, I was entirely free of stress and ready for great things to happen.