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Thread DOTx01: Opening Time
(Dimensions of Thought, Vol. I, pp. 37-43)
What is five minutes like? How much experience can it encompass? How much can be accomplished and how much fulfillment found in a five-minute interval? It is common knowledge that the same amount of clock time can seem longer or shorter, depending on whether it involves painful or pleasurable experiences, and on the overall context. But . . . we can discover that time is variable in still another way, one quite unlike this subjective variation in judging the duration of a standard clock-time interval. This discovery involves using more 'knowingness', and thereby supercedes the distinction between the variable/subjective and the fixed/objective. It amounts to contacting more of the 'space' and 'time' that are available in each apparently fixed and limited interval of ordinary time. . . .
Set a timer to ring after five minutes has elapsed. Sit quietly, remaining as aware and awake as possible, and see 'how much' experience you can have during this timed period. Several different approaches are possible in this regard. You might want to work with thoughts, sensings, and experiences, keeping track of the approximate number of them that can be accommodated within five minutes. You could, for instance, use a string with a series of knots in it to mark the passage of each thought, counting up the total only when the session is over. Or, on a more subtle level, you could work with awarenesses or 'knowings' that are attuned to a more open-ended presence and are not so content-oriented (they are not awarenesses of things). Again, try to maintain an estimate of the number of these entertained in five minutes.
You should find plenty of things to count, although it may be hard at times to know where one 'item' leaves off and the next begins. You need not worry about this, however, since a rough approximation is sufficient here, and it is difficult to individuate 'things' of this kind consistently and without being arbitrary. On the other hand, it can happen that, while practicing the exercise, you open up so much that the ordinary chatter of events comes to a halt. If you find yourself with nothing to count, first make sure that you are really open--transparent, in a way--rather than merely sleepy (too loose) or too tight (from being engaged in the ongoing reinforcement of an allegedly open position). If one of the latter is the case, there are actually many things happening that can be counted if you look sensitively.
If you are open, in a higher knowledge way that is not currently picking up lots of countable traces, just abandon the counting exercise for a while, and deepen and expand this other kind of experience. Here, as with the other Time, Space, and Knowledge exercises, it is important to remain flexible, that is, ready and willing to incorporate whatever presents itself into your practice.
After tasting this quiet, open space for a time, see if you can 'steer' this openness back into a more playful experiential sequence that can be enumerated. Just as we accommodated the openness, so it, in turn, should be amenable to 'happenings', without this involving a deterioration in the level of practice. It is possible to simultaneously apprehend the countable events and appreciate their 'open, unoriginated status'. In fact, this is what allows us to increase our totals in the versions of the exercise that follow.
After doing this exercise on a number of occasions, the totals from the various sessions may approach a fairly consistent figure; You can then use this number as the standard for the next series of practice sessions. In these sessions, conduct the same test of your capacity for utilizing time, but limit each session to four minutes. See if, with sufficient practice, you can register the same total that you had in the final round of five-minute periods. When you can, use this same score as your goal for three-minute sessions. Continue in this way until you can enjoy what had previously been a typical five minutes' worth of experience in a one-minute session.
P. 42: To emphasize the insight that smaller and larger intervals are inherently the same, try working with a five-second practice session. Learn to use this length of time with increasing effectiveness, marking your progress as before. It may eventually be possible for you to enjoy the same amount of experience as in the case of five minutes. Where then is the real difference between these intervals? What is the sense of such distinctions, except to characterize the capacity of our typical, but arbitrary, approach to knowing time? . . .
Pp. 42-3: Investigate the tiny time intervals constituting an experience of pain or anger lasting for five minutes or so. What is the overall impression of the anger when considered in relation to its individual components? Going further, along the lines suggested by the zigzag diagram, what is the anger like, considered in the light of the indefinitely many points of experience (x's, y's, z's, etc.) available to us when we delve into second-level 'time', out of which the first-level experience of anger emerges as the merest superficial expression?
Seen in relation to its first-level fractional components, each one savored with great attentiveness, the solid and heavy second-level feeling of anger or pain has never developed an exclusively angry or painful character. Seen in relation to the infinite zigzag series of 'time' which is available in every presence, the feeling of pain does not even begin to dominate the field of experience, let alone pervade our awareness. And since it does not get the opportunity to claim to be all that is happening, it can never become evidence that the situation is 'bad', 'negative', or 'unpleasant'.
Next, instead of working with such intense situations, consider the large amounts of time which just 'go by', unused in any really creative way because the individual component periods--a few seconds, minutes, or hours here and there--seem intrinsically limited or inadequate for really accomplishing anything. By learning to be sensitive to the infinity of 'time' available within any clock-time period, we can begin to appreciate more fully the value and possibilities life presents. We can begin by noticing more time, more available moments, and then later we can have a more intimate experience with 'time'. 'Time' can become very much a part of us, and can nourish and fulfill us. Finally, with sufflcient appreciation of our actually being 'time', we--or 'knowingness'--can abide forever within the smallest duration of clock-time.
entry 0001: [Steve Randall, 10/14/98]
My count for 5 minutes was 314.
I noticed while doing the exercise that when linear time gets set up, there's a simultaneous 'reaching' or 'looking forward' from a position 'in the 'present'.
It helps to allow the breathing to become very smooth and gentle, almost shallow.
Perhaps after the mindings become very subtle, the "Moments between moments" exercise is better. Even now there's a tendency to look for 'things' or events, effectively 'creating' things.
There's a tendency to see progress in doing this exercise as 'getting somewhere up ahead', rather than 'getting more into' it, getting more involved and breaking up the linear time. When linear segments do get set up, subsequently trying to break them up frequently shows another linear tendency.
I switched from using a string of beads to using a calculator. With the calculator, I alternate pressing the "2" key with my left index finger with pressing the "+" key with my right index finger. So each time I press the plus key, two is added to the total.
After several repetitions, my count for 3 minutes was 362.
After having done a number of repetitions of this exercise, there's a strong sense of abiding in peaceful awareness.
After one 'point' in the counting, everything shut down; there were no events and no counting; then there was something like 'waking up' from sleep.
Physical tension has a linear temporal component that can also be broken up with this counting.
After numerous repetitions, my count for 2 minutes was 314.
This exercise could be considered a form of the expanding and condensing exercise.
Walking around after doing the exercise a number of times, I notice a tendency to think about how various things I'm doing take a certain 'length' of time. Again and again, a linear duration is perceived/anticipated for a certain task.
I noticed an urge to get something sweet after lunch, then watched as the sensation in my belly broke up, leaving a simple feeling of tiredness. I wanted to eat to get more tired, then take a nap.
10/13/98: count for 2 minutes was 374; count for one
minute rose to 222; then I did 5 mins and counted 1304, which
averaged 260/min.
entry 0002: [Molly Riley, 10/14/98]
I tried this one for two weeks, one time every day for the five minute period, and more than once for the five second period. The exercise made me appreciate the passage of time differently. So many things can happen in five minutes.
I looked at the second hand of my watch go around during the five minutes and the attention put on the watch made it into a sacred implement. Knowing the time was limited, the quality of attention was intense and in my perception whatever my attention rested on changed somehow. Because there was only five minutes a day, even passing thoughts and daydreams burned up if they chanced to pass through that line of attention. They would either expand into component feelings which then would grow and intensify as I paid attention to them, or else would simply disappear.
The five second intervals were relatively more ecstatic, and I wondered why. Was it because I could not maintain such ecstasy for five whole minutes?
In addition, the expectation that I was going to do this exercise gave a sense of expectancy to the whole day which somehow seemed meaningful.
Steve Randall replied: It's interesting that you used a watch, because for years I've used a very large clock in a similar (but not exactly the same) group exercise. People watch the movement of the second hand of the clock and observe the changes in their experience of time passing. It makes the typical confusion/identification of clock time, which our Western cultures teach, and inner time quite obvious.
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