Shhhhhhh!
O.K., now that you've have been experimenting for a while, do you ever find that sometimes Noticing doesn't seem to work no matter how hard you try? If that's so, you're probably trying too hard. It's easy to get pushy with Noticing. When doing you experience Noticing as a simple shift of attention away from trying to feel, but we are so accustomed to evaluating things by how they feel, it's easy to fall back into using feeling as THE reference.
This is especially true when Noticing has led to changes that you like and want to repeat. Since those changes are defined by the new way you moved and felt, there's a tendency to go directly for those changes and forget about the Noticing. If we are truly determined to recapture the new experience, we will return to Noticing but try twice as hard, constantly checking to see if the nice feeling returns. Oops! The whole purpose of Noticing was to stop using our debauched kinesthetic sense as a guide in order to allow our postural reflexes to work their magic. Alas, no magic here, just stinky old habits.
Enter: Half-Power Thinking. Take the amount of effort you are using to Notice and cut it in half and then move a bit. Divide that effort in half again and move again. Divide again and move. Divide and move. Now you're Noticing with one-sixteenth of the effort you started out with. You are back in the realm delicacy. You're Noticing innocently, without an agenda and simply observing what happens.
The mind and the body are an interesting pair. Zen master Shunru Suzuki described them as being: "Not two, not one" He said, "If you think your body and mind are two, that is wrong; if you think that they are one that is also wrong. Our mind and body are both two and one...this is the most important teaching: not two, and not one." As separate entities, mind and body need to communicate but as a unity there is complete understanding, like telepathic twins. In certain ways we mediate that communication, but it has to be done gently. Noticing opens the door with a whisper. We move with ease and grace. There's no need to shout.
This is especially true when Noticing has led to changes that you like and want to repeat. Since those changes are defined by the new way you moved and felt, there's a tendency to go directly for those changes and forget about the Noticing. If we are truly determined to recapture the new experience, we will return to Noticing but try twice as hard, constantly checking to see if the nice feeling returns. Oops! The whole purpose of Noticing was to stop using our debauched kinesthetic sense as a guide in order to allow our postural reflexes to work their magic. Alas, no magic here, just stinky old habits.
Enter: Half-Power Thinking. Take the amount of effort you are using to Notice and cut it in half and then move a bit. Divide that effort in half again and move again. Divide again and move. Divide and move. Now you're Noticing with one-sixteenth of the effort you started out with. You are back in the realm delicacy. You're Noticing innocently, without an agenda and simply observing what happens.
The mind and the body are an interesting pair. Zen master Shunru Suzuki described them as being: "Not two, not one" He said, "If you think your body and mind are two, that is wrong; if you think that they are one that is also wrong. Our mind and body are both two and one...this is the most important teaching: not two, and not one." As separate entities, mind and body need to communicate but as a unity there is complete understanding, like telepathic twins. In certain ways we mediate that communication, but it has to be done gently. Noticing opens the door with a whisper. We move with ease and grace. There's no need to shout.
posted by Mio Morales at 8/30/2006 09:47:00 AM
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