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concentrating on keeping the weight even over the entire soles of the feet, making sure you dont roll the pressure round the outside for example, is good for rooting and relaxing through the feet and into the ground. holding awareness in the kidney_1 acupuncture points (the soft spot right in the middle of the foot behind the ball and straight down from the 2nd and 3rd toe) is good for opening the feet up,
hope no one minds if i digress a little, this is my first post on any forum so forgive me if, in popping my posting cherry, i miss etiquite or go off on one.
This is a practice which in recent days has been really useful to me, ive described it in a more imaginative way cos i thought a more textbook description wouldnt impart what ive got from it:
The Returning Meditation
This is something that has given me a few quite useful experiences in recent days, can be taken to approximately three different levels, it is mostly based on internal visualisation, but should be rooted within the body, so maintain the basics of meditation throughout; relax, upright spine, breath and mind held at the centre (despite the fact you going to be spinning off some)
Start by sitting in a comfortable upright position, breath and relax, notice the progression of time, noises that are outside, breeze blowing thorough your meditation area, the ongoing stream of events that has led you to this point
Now, stop the flow of time,
Birds hang in the air, sound has stopped, the very path of the planet and stars have just been paused and held in space,
Begin the rewind, slowly, first at normal speed (as in the speed of the stream as you came up to this point) begin rewinding your day, get up, moving backwards , go through your day, item by item, step buy step, slowly, ever so slowly speeding up the backwards speed of the stream. Don’t miss a point, this part is almost an exercise in memory, remember every point, the journeys you made , the interactions you had, the thoughts and sensations too, mostly this should still be done from first person perspective , through your eyes if you will, right back to the moment you awoke in the morning,
You can stop here, this part can be a way just before going to sleep of “returning to zero” or of etch-a-sketching the day clear before a practice, but you can continue:
The speed increases, the previous nights dreams flash past in an instant and the next day speeds backward, now several times faster than the last, indeed each day speeds past faster and faster, you may find the perspective naturally changes to observing yourself from outside and above, this is fine, in fact as the days pass into weeks and months and the speed continues to accelerate the perspective may rise more and more, your path like a lightning stream between your points of travelling, like car headlights filmed in high speed, but maintain focus, include as much detail as you can, the patterns of your daily routine, the individual situations which interspersed them, journeys to other parts of the country or the globe. Day/ night flicks on and off like switch , suns and moons speed by. Still feel your body centred as your mind speeds back through time.
The perspective raises, as the speed becomes exponential , individual details are lost now as the years wind back, seasons flick past in a second, through adolescence, childhood, the range of movement may compress as you suddenly become a baby and - a pause.
Your personal stream “stops (starts)” with your birth, your conception.
You can stop here, in the womb, or even play at the moment the deep red essence of the female meets the bright white essence of the male, there’s a lot of energy here, at this meeting.
But the path continues, see the world from above spinning ever faster back and back, the movement of people, the advent of electricity., conflicts and the movement of tribes, earths history played out in rewind, now so quick the earths annual path round the sun is like a solid ring round the sun , as are the paths of the other planets.
Move the perspective back, hold the solar system, be aware of much more.
Mankind is gone, soon too the dinosaurs, continents move , oceans boil, volcanoes spew the first atmosphere. The planets begin to de-coalesce moving round the sun in a spiral nebula of dust and element. Note now our systems path around the galactic centre, of galaxies around each other, cluster, super cluster, and more, all spiral round and move back more and more towards a central point, the point of Origin.
Try to grasp all the of planets, all the stars, billions, trillions, maybe infinite in number all spiralling back to a point, galaxies upon galaxies compressing together.
All that massive energy compresses down to a single point no bigger than sphere, a tiny sphere, smaller, The whole energy of All things, of potential, resting in an infinite empty space, the moment of Creation. Of interface. of Being rising from Non-Being. Of the Source.
Place this in your centre, rest in this, and silently contemplate.
Chapter 40
Return is the movement of the Tao.
Yielding is the way of the Tao.
All things are born of being.
Being is born of non-being.
Chapter 52 (excerpts)
In the beginning was the Tao.
All things issue from it;
all things return to it.
To find the origin,
trace back the manifestations.
Seeing into darkness is clarity.
Knowing how to yield is strength.
Use your own light
and return to the source of light.
This is called practicing eternity.
Lao tzu |
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