Time...Past...Present...Future...wk 3...

Time...Past...Present...Future...

Ok, time is not what we think...the present is always shaped by the past, and in that sense can never be experienced as the present, b/c the instant we experience it and then put it into ‘concrete’ avenues of interpretation through the witness that witnesses, and the narrator that tells the story, it immediately becomes the ‘solid’ past...the future on the other hand, never comes into being for it is always on the edge of presenting itself, kinda like how i use to joke around and say that ‘tomorrow never comes, b/c when it finally arrives it is always today!”  Once we can actually wrap our minds around this, then what?

Seems the only thing we can truly inhabit, is the present, but what exactly is ‘the present’, and are we truly able to ‘inhabit’ it?  We can say that the ‘present’ is determined by its content, iow, if I am sitting here eating a bowl of oatmeal, that is proof that I am present in my present, and yet the moment I finish the oatmeal, am I still not present in that present moment too?  Which has nothing to do with the ‘content’ that I am eating oatmeal?  What is it that makes me present?  What is it that makes the past the past and the present the present?  Can I really have a ‘present’ without an interpretation of ‘my’ ‘past’?  And if that is so, would not that interpretation of ‘my’ past continue to bind me to it?  Not allowing for freedom of movement in a present that is not influenced and bound by the past?  How can the present be anything other than a manifestation of the past?  Does this not make the present already ‘spoken for’?  Already created?  How can we truly be free in the present?  Can the ‘present’ be anything other than a continuing of the past?  Are we really free?  Can we be free of our own conditioning?  What about the future?  Since it never takes form, as it is always the future, is not whatever takes form already decided by the past, and in that sense already the past?  True enough, it might not be the exact same as the past moment before it, but is it not shaped by the past just the same?  Does it not ‘come to life’ because of the past?  If we were to single out a point in time where ‘we’ began, would that point in time not logically have a past?  Would that past accumulation of prior ‘moments’ be strung out over ‘time timed out’ and brought forward to this moment here and now and only then be called the ‘present’?  Then where would it go from there?  Once it is labeled as present does it not then too become past?  Where oh where is the future?  Swallowed up  by a past that is always presenting itself over and over again?  How can we escape this timed out, predetermined, existence?

PRACTICE NOTES...

The purpose of these exercises and practices is to see if we can experience time in another way; a more open way, but also, it helps us see how we confine our experience,   by allowing ourselves to only experience time in a linear fashion.  When we are able to 'see' our conditioned reactions and patterns 'in action' then we are able to actually do something about them...When we can open up to TSK and inquire into our experience, our perspective opens up and is freed from the dictates of identity or a self that has been created from the past and ‘times out time’ with all the expectations and desires of a limited ‘self’.  While we still can be aware of things that we have to do, our needs on the physical level, those limits do not have to limit our Being and our experience as such...Being can open to Space which allows for appearance of ‘all’ things.  Being can also open up to the dynamic of Time that allows for the 'aliveness' of experience.  Just ‘Knowing’ this is freeing in and of itself, and yet the goal is to experience this at a deeper level, allowing for surfaces to be transcended, and ‘ideas’ that are solid to unfreeze, which then allows for that momentum of ‘The Dynamic of Time’ to be connected to and experienced, or embodied...without any ‘self’ to experience it...it becomes just a presentation of Being, where the line between subject and object is blurred, and what is experienced is the momentum of Time itself...alive and free...creating out of the 'uninhibited' future-present, without a solid past to dictate...where aliveness is felt, and every possibility is available...

Again, I do not want anyone to think that this practice is a rejection of ‘time being timed out’...or ‘life on life’s terms’...it is an opening of that experience...every limit we come in contact with, whether it be one of everyday life and our circumstances or the idea of the ‘self’, can be opened up to Time, Space, Knowledge...opening up inquiry concerning our beliefs and ideas about anything and everything, opens up our perspective, or that focus we have on awareness, and allows for more freedom of Being in this space and time...more freedom of Being allows for more Knowing, b/c what is participating in this knowing is not confined to any limits of a knower or a certain kind of knowledge to be known or obtained...this does not mean we stop thinking, it means we are able to think with more clarity, in more useful ways that are not limiting, or that is 'open-ended'...and even if we do reach another limit, we can understand that it need not be solid, and we can inquire into it...and open it up as well...

While practicing ‘Being’ on the edge of Time, there has been a deeper freedom felt from the actual stories of the past...and yet, I have been working closely with my ‘stories’ for in recovery they are my tool kit of experience, strength and hope that I can share with others when necessary...

I have been working with someone that is very early in recovery, and yet just in a few short weeks, it is as if she has been transformed and is a seasoned veteran, or what we call an ‘old timer’ in the program...she is experiencing that sense of joy that comes in early sobriety if and when we surrender to that power greater than our ‘self’...and she is showing great clarity of awareness after having 'opened-up' her past and looked at it with an honest heart...It has been good for me to witness her sense of being flourish, and I have been filled with even more peace and joy than I could ever have imagined possible, and yet my awareness of my own limits seems to be narrowing in deeper ways, bidding me to open them even more...so at another level, I am restricted even more in the very act of giving these limits more attention or awareness...however, It amazes me that when I decide to see things from a new and more open perspective, and put those thoughts into my awareness and into action...my life changes in very wonder-filled ways...and yet, all that really changes is my perspective...when it opens, there is freeing...when it focuses or closes in on a solid point, no matter what that point may be, my experience becomes confined and limited until I once again choose to open it...surrendering even the limitation of my own unknowing...over to the mystery of the magic of the real...

always, Star...

The picture I chose was from RAINCROW'S ARTWORK...check her out, she is amazing!

PRACTICE NOTES TABLE OF CONTENTS

Fall 2008 - Unit One: Inquiry, Space

October 6 - December 5, 2008
Davidu
1.  Layers of Mind with TSK
2.  Exploring Layers of Mind with TSK 
3.  Space of Memories of Layers and Contexts
4.  Expanding with TSK
5.  Expanding - Revealing the Field
6.  Condensing Experience with TSK
7.  Week 7, Generating Space
8.  Tracing the Tendency toward Solidity

Balder
1.  Layers of Mind (TSK Practice Notes)
2.  Deepening Layers of Mind
3.  Week Three: Exploring Space and Form
4.  Week Four: Expanding Layers of Mind
5.  Subject-Object Reversal (TSK Class 9)

Debyemm
1.  Layers of Mind (TSK Practice Notes)

Winter 2009 - Unit Two: Thoughts, Stories, Self

January 12 - March 13, 2009

Davidu
1.  TSK Course Two - Time (Thoughts, Stories, Self)
2.  Week Two - Thoughts that Establish
3.  I'm Telling (TSK Unit 2, Week 3)
4.  Unit 2, Week 4 - Defining Stories
5.  Models, Stories and Self - Week 6
6.  The Founding Story of the Self (week 7)
7.  Imposing Reality & the Cycle of Seeing, Week 9
Balder

1.  TSK Online Course (Unit 2)
2.  Watching Thoughts (TSK Class 2, Unit 2)
3.  Telling Stories (TSK Unit 2, Week 3)
4.  Telling Stories 2 (TSK Unit 2, Week 3)
5.  Personifying Thoughts, Embodying Space (TSK Unit 2, Week 5)

Starlight
1.  Adventures with Time, Space, Knowledge
2.  Noticing Thoughts - TSK Exercise
3.  once upon a time...tsk exercise
4.  restoring multidimensionality...tsk exercise week 4
5. Memories, Models, Stories, Immediate Experience...TSK Exercise...
6.  self interpretation...models...tsk exercise...
7.  core self...tsk exercise...wk 7
8.  self and world given...tsk exercise...wk. 8
9.  Creating My Reality...TSK Exercise...wk 9...

Spring 2009 - Unit Three: Conducting Time and Knowledge

March 30 - May 29, 2009

Davidu

1.  Objects of Desire - TSK Class 3, Unit 1
2.  The Edge of the Future - Class 3, Unit 2

Starlight