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Thread KTSx05: Feel of Space
Knowledge of Time and Space, Exercise 5: Feel of Space, p. 207
Direct your attention to the stream of thoughts. At the first level, one thought arises and then disappears, to be replaced by the next, like a smoothly functioning computer program. At a second level, attention can shift to what happens when the thought comes to an end; sensitively observed, the thought 'opens' into a kind of space--a 'deprogramming' in which it becomes clear that the stream of mental chatter is not necessary.
Beyond this, there is a third level, at which it is no longer
necessary to make a sharp distinction between thoughts and the
space between them, for the thoughts also appear as space. A
way into this awareness is to focus on the 'opening' of thought
into space in such a way that you both see and do not see it.
This might be considered a 'reprogramming', in which old distinctions
and concerns are no longer operative.
entry 0001: [Carl Wittnebert, November, 1998] When my thoughts slow down, I do get a feeling of vastness, and the somewhat disconcerting sense that thoughts, and by implication appearance, are like the tip of an iceberg. But the little critters are so elusive, and so difficult to attend to without using other thoughts, that I have yet to gain a lot of confidence in my practice of this exercise.
entry 0002: [Steve Randall, Dec. 2, 1998] Doing the practice today, for a while I noticed a clear distinction between the presence of a thought and space without thought or distinction. There was an alternating of these. After a while the "space communication" exercise (p. 225) spontaneously showed up without much of a doer or owner. Still later, textures of space showed up alongside and within thoughts and feelings. I was feeling somewhat depressed at the start of the practice session, and this was a healing experience, as suggested in the commentary of the exercise.
It seems that the exercise progressed through the three levels mentioned on p. 207, from a sequencing of one thought followed by another, to an alternating of thinking and space without thought, to a level where there was not such a sharp distinction between thoughts and the space between them, because the thoughts themselves also appeared as space.
entry 0003: I [Carl Wittnebert, 12/4/98] wrote this following a practice:
Looking for the end of thoughts, I felt a continuity like
a fabric, as if underneath the physical world. It felt relaxing
and spacious. Occasionally there was one of those jolts of energy
that can be labelled either fear or exhilaration, or both. The
most pleasant feature of contemplating this fabric was the absence
of restlessness, and a diminished sense of being located somewhere.
There was a sense of some vast domain, of which phenomenal existence
represents only bits and pieces. . .
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