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Underground > Temple >

The Magic Bus

02:05 / 05.06.02

Thanks to a summer session at a not-very-nearby college, I have a total of roughly four hours of public transit time each and every weekday. I'd like to be doing calculus homework during this time, but I get violently motion sick whenever I try to read or write while taking ground transportation.

This morning, I thought I'd try a two-hour session of meditation; it's been ten years since I did any kind of regular meditation (and it wasn't very regular back then, either), but I still had a positive experience. Positive enough, in fact, that I started thinking that public transit could be my official magickal space--the Bus Mundi, if you will.

On the way home, I had a lot more difficulty maintaining focus. Some of that was the shouting match between a passenger and the driver, but mostly I think it's the duration.

Any tips on the "things to practice while sitting still for two hours with no props or reading"? All I've got in mind so far is the first chapter of Liber Null.

02:40 / 05.06.02

If it were me, I would start with some Hare Krsna's
"Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna. Krsna Krsna. Hare Hare
Hare Rama, Hare Rama. Rama Rama. Hare Hare."
and then move on to some other prayers that are easily memorized (Ohm, Lord's prayer, etc.).

I would then see if I could meditate with open eyes (something I've never been able to do).

If I could think of anything interesting, I might try being someone else for those two hours. Take an avon packet and try to sell products to all the people who sit next to you. Then when they speak, take their words as the most profound words in the world, and try to figure out what they mean, in all the depth of levels. Write it down, rearrange the letters, do numerology, look for synonyms. There's a very important message there, and you have to find it.

I'm serious about all of this.

15:40 / 05.06.02

Have you tried studying the map? Sometimes there are hidden correspondences in the shapes of routes.

16:02 / 05.06.02

I sometimes will stare at and study at other passengers and try to mimic their mannerisms, energy and facial expression. selecting the most magnetic or confident looking person until they get off at their stop.

18:18 / 05.06.02

I've been known to do "PC pullup" keigle exercises to pass time. That is, tense and release your groin muscles. Developing these lets you do fun tantra tricks like retrograde ejaculations, which is always a good party trick. Plus, the exercise itself is mildly stimulating in and of itself, and noone watching is the wiser.

18:44 / 05.06.02

I'd advise getting a portable cd player or MP3 player to listen to. I've always found that listening to certain types of music can place one in a magical mood. I happen to like Radiohead, Smashmouth, Buddhist and Tibetian chants, Alan Moore's spoken word stuff, and some of Patti Smith's stuff for magical work. There are also recordings of Crowley's Enochian chants as well.

This can be very helpful on a bus, since it help to push out other people from your field of perception.

Along with cusm, I would also recommend "physical" forms of mediation, such as the type detail by C. S. Hyatt in his "Undoing Yourself." Even if you don't have that book, sequentially tensing and relaxing your muscles produces very pleasant and interesting effects. This is very true, I find, when you stretch and relax the facial and shoulder muscles.

I have found that by relaxing my muscles in this manner, it helps me to obtain my "magical mind" the mindset I use to enchant with. The body and mind is trained to see these excercises a prep for magical work and it helps me hop right into the right frame of mind.

-Jesse

18:51 / 05.06.02

Hawaiian meditation techniques from Urban Shaman:

Look at something a few feet away from you.

Focus on it and notice how you give it your full attention, you aren't pying attention to anything else in your field of vision.

Next, look at it again but give your attention to the extremities of your field of vision. Notice how the object you are staring at is the thing you're paying the least ammount of attention to.

Next, look at the object again and try to notice something different about it. This is great when you get the same bus or whatever day in and day out. It forces you to look at things in a new way.

If you don't mind funny stares, try this:
1. Turn your head all the way to the left and look at something that's as far to behind you as you can (if you get my meaning.) Use it as a "marker".

2. Turn your head slowly back to the front, taking in as much detail as possible.

3. Then close your eyes and mentally turn your head to the left again, recreating it in as much detail as you can. Then mentally turn your head back to the front again.

4. Repeat step one. You should be able to see further behind you. (past your "marker.")

19:22 / 05.06.02

The last time I was in any sort of edumacation at all I used to commute every day and would have to hurry home and into work. I used to trance out totally on the bus home. Even if I didn't try, I used to visualize all this mad shit like trains and islands and everything flowing into itself. Its a bit hard to explain but it was really weird and a bit of a hardcore experience and the best thing was I want through this every did. back then I only had to sleep about four hours a night and I think that time (5 years ago roughly) sort of laid the groundwork for what I'm at these days (or is that next year). it was great but totally out of the ordinary and with feck all drugs too.
Shite, I've lost the point I had when starting but I think it was something aboout buses (and trains) being a greate place for me to meditate.