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(second class) Okay! So here we go again! Picking up where we left off before . . . today we are going to try to get a little better at understanding what we mean by "focus" in these classes. And we will also take up becoming "oriented" in the space that you are living in. That's because "really being oriented" lies obscured in the shadow world for most of us, most of the time. And as we are "being disoriented" in the ordinary world in which we live, ordinarily . . . . . . I will try to "take you to it," so you can see it there in shadows and bring it out into the light. I'll attempt to do this by coaching some more experiential exercises. And then you can try out "really being oriented" for what it is . . . as we mean that in these classes here. And that means, first of all, "really being in focus."
I do hope you've practiced the seeing and hearing exercises from the last class. Because the more you gain familiarity with exercises such as these, the more easily you will be able to catch on to all that lies ahead. If you had trouble remembering to practice them, I understand. That's the way it is. We humans are highly conditioned (the way that we grow up on this planet today) to forget about the realm of light entirely, and to dwell "in the ordinary way that things are" almost all of the time--that is, to dwell in the ordinary realm of shadows. This is a kind of training that has to do with remembering to take notice of that. And, as one is learning a way of transforming the realm of shadows into a realm of light as we go along here, the most important things to take account of are these:
(skip this part and go to the exercises below)
2. You have seen a little bit now of what a world of light is. And there is much more yet for you to see. 3. Given that you are "spring-loaded" to forget all about all this-- when you are not right here online in kindergarten "with your old coach," at least for now--the crucial challenge to any student of mindful awareness lies in finding the wherewithal to remember to do it during the course of the days. Remembering to practice is the key. You can continue along in all these classes here, and you will "get" the experiences all the way along. And that, in itself, will be a tremendous initial boost to you in remembering afterwards to do these exercises (or, awareness practices) in the midst of your everyday life. This is especially true if you will practice the exercises in each lesson on your own for awhile, before going on to the next lesson. It gets easier to remember to have awarenesses as one goes along. And the more that one practices, the easier it gets. What's more, the more that one practices, the more the individual parts of this training come together into a more holistic perspective that you can understand and use to guide yourself by. (All the choices will still be up to you!) As you are "asleep," that is, forgetting to practice very much during the day, you need strategies to remind you to "awaken." You can invent such strategies by any little notes, paste-ups, re-arrangements of things, spiritual ikons, pictures of saintly figures--all of these, by pre-arrangment with you, your own self. This sets it up for these reminders that you put out to be "speaking to you" in the same ways. "Wake up!" they say. "You have five senses that are likely not being in focus. Bring a little light onto the thing. Have an awareness of it." If you are an artist in this type of personal growth work, you can find a hundred ways to remind yourself to remember to practice in your own home alone. And then you can add others in your car, where you work, etc. All of them, wherever you put these little reminders around, will be designed by your convention with yourself to remind you to wake up and bring any of your five senses into focus. Mix and match. Keep changing their types and the locations of these reminders around, so the surprise of their reminding is "re-charged" for you. Have awarenesses whenever you are reminded in this way that "there is such a thing as having awarenesses" again.
Another way of approaching this is the "dangerous" path. This is a path for the most free-spirited of people. Yet it is a path that is "dangerous" because it may lead to a place where you forget about having awarenesses altogether and never remember them again, perhaps for months, or years, or even for the rest of your life. Nothing else harmful will happen to you other than that. It is just that it is a little risky to follow this strategy if a person is really sincerely caring about learning mindful awareness. Here's the idea: make a solemn convention with yourself, a promise, a challenge, a sacred vow, however you personally might put it. Have this vow say something like this (and you can make up your own vow the way you like it, of course!):
"I undertake to promise that whenever, in the course of my life, I remember that there is such a thing as having awarenesses, I will take the slight effort to actually transform the scene before me then from shadows into light by the actual use of any of my five senses in having real awarenesses on the spot."It is good if a person will attempt to have these reminded "awakenings" last for about ten seconds or more in the beginning when you have them, and for about a minute, later on, with continuing practice and experience. Along the way, through weeks for some, months or even years for others, the ability will be there to choose to remain with this having awarenesses for prolonged periods of time. Even early on, a student can practice continuing to have awarenesses during the duration of an event. "While I wash these dishes." "While I go out to the mailbox and come back." "While I cook this dinner." "While I drive all the way to where I work." One has to begin with an awakened and focused intent to do such exercises. And one is likely to note that while these events are going on (even during the shorter events one might pick to play with in this way), one "goes to sleep" and forgets that they are doing the exercise. This can happen again and again. Yet, from practicing, and making honest attempts at doing this, you will see that, even though you "go to sleep" on the exercise from time to time, you will begin "waking up" again and realizing that you went to sleep before. And then you can go on again (without hassling yourself in any way!) in having awarenesses again, while the event is still going on. When this process (of remembering the last time you fell asleep when you wake up again) has begun, you will definitely be a real mindfulness practitioner and student! You will be able to see yourself begin practicing a mindfulness exercise, fall asleep and forget it entirely, and then wake up on it again, and go on having awarenesses. That is all that us teachers of mindfulness can do, too! No teachers of mindfulness that I know of claim that they are having awarenesses all of the time. Through their own several techniques they practice having awarenesses enough to be awake in this way quite often and easily (for the fun and enjoyment of it, most of the time, I might add!). Teachers become more and more able to remember having awarenesses frequently during the day. When we recognize we "need to," that is, when we see that we haven't been having awarenesses as much lately, then we know enough to redouble our deliberate practice. This extra practice, done on purpose, "primes the pump," so to speak. It "recharges the batteries." And we can become very fully able to sustain having awarenesses for even long periods of time when that is "necessary," or "appropriate," or simply fun, "because we like to." The trouble with having that convention with oneself (the dangerous approach) exclusively (that is, without also having deliberate periods of intentional practice during every day), comes when a student starts cutting himself or herself slack on this promise to actually do the awareness exercises every time that they are reminded (however and whenever the reminder comes to mind). Sometimes this may not seem convenient. If people are lazy, and they say, "Oh yeah, I've been doin' that lately,"and I know what it is already, so I won't bother to do it now because I'm too busy doing this..." Well, there is a "power curve" involved here, as suggested in the teaching that the more one practices, the more easily one remembers to practice and the longer one can keep practicing in a given time. The more slack you cut yourself here, the more likely you will fall below on the power curve, to where you "forget to remember" more and more frequently, and eventually you may lose the "inner strength" to continue having awarenesses intentionally for more than a second or two (which is like the ordinary state of human consciousness, living in the realm of shadows). So those who follow the "dangerous" path, will find their path is strengthened and they will have more and more heart for it, if they will keep the convention that they set with themself every time. And if they care to throw in a little intentional practice during their days, as well, so much the better! Just doing all the exercises in the dozen or so original basic classes here in the kindergarten, will give you an initial power boost. The more experientially you do the exercises in these classes, the greater will be this power boost that you get. Later, you will have some opportunities that just pop up in your mind, like "hello!" when you are doing who knows what it will be. And you will be reminded, and get that interesting chance to "wake up on it," if you choose to do so. Take that interesting chance. Stay in it for a little while. Remember that when you stay in it longer on a given occasion, by the effort that takes, you are building up strength for it in your body (and accumulating what some might call the "mana," anthropologically) that can help you continue forward on an awakening path of transforming the realm of shadows into light. It you start doing that on your own, and keep with it, that will create more power bursts that will keep your practice going from day to day, and from week to week. As long as you keep doing that, you can take responsibility for creating your own powerboosts that propel you along this awakening path through your life. When you get to that place, if you'd care to come back here to kindergarten again from time to time . . . for an extra energy boost now and then (by doing the guided experiential exercises that are coached here), you're always free to do that. This is a way that I can put some of that energy into the world, and you can pick some of that energy up. (At least, it is here to get you jump-started again, if you catch on at some point that you're being pulled back into that shadowland entirely, and you realize that you may forget to keep practicing transforming it into the realm of light.). Even if you do forget, perhaps you will find yourself one day on the shores of another approach to mindful awareness training, and pick up where you left off there. And if you would forget about having awarenesses forever, I could only say my heart goes out to you, too, and I wish you all the best.
Now for studying "focus" and "getting oriented" in the space.
First of all, I'd like to call it to your attention that while you are taking this class today, reading along here in the text that is on your screen, while your eyes are focused here on the "content" of the screen (don't move your eyes now!) you can also see, "out of the corners of your eyes," so to speak, that there is something on behind there in the background behind your computer monitor.
Keep your focus here on the screen, please, and take note that you can also see, dimly, that there is something, back on behind there--a wall, or a picture, a wall with things attached to it, maybe a window, whatever is over there. It is vaguely in the background, yet you can know that it is there, while keeping your focus here.
Now shift your focus over there to that wall, or whatever is back there, and look it over very closely. Let the true nature of the detail that is over there come into the light.
Please put your focus over there again, and bring the background into high relief as you just did, and while you are doing this, notice that you can now see your glowing monitor screen at the same time. It has "moved into the background" and is now vague and indistinct.
You have shifted your focus from the screen to the background, and as you bring each of these "into focus," you can see that the other one then moves into the background and goes out of focus.
Put this focus back now on your monitor--by that I mean, not focused on the words here, the content of this screen, but on the monitor, itself. See the housing that surrounds the screen. See it in its fine detail. Let it come up for you in high relief as you did with the wall or background a little while ago.
Now see the screen here, itself. Can you see that there is a piece of glass here? Can you see anything on the surface of this screen of glass, any smudges or tiny spots? If you can actually see the screen by these attempts, now you are really in focus.
These are just awareness you are having, first seeing the background very acutely, then seeing the monitor. And seeing that there is a background and a foreground when you are seeing things. That is an awareness, too. And, on top of that, seeing that there is "focus," and then, there "really is focus," when you really see all that you can discern that is there.
The human mind is always in "focus" (in the former way) somewhere. That is, at any given time, the mind is focused on something. And this focus is usually a rather lax "focus." One sees that the thing is there, but one doesn't really see the thing, itself--not in its detail, not in high relief.
When the mind has one thing in the foreground in this lax "focus," as when one is reading, and primarily interested in "the meaning of the words" (and not even the actual letters that are there, the shapes and color of them, that you can "really focus on"), everything else that is around in the field of view is in the background. With ordinary "focus," our vision tells us that something is there, and everything else becomes vague in the background.
Yet this object that is seen in this way is somewhat vague, as well, and not "all the way" in focus. It is not so vague that we don't know that it's there, because we are actually looking at it and see that it's there. But it is somewhat vague because it hasn't jumped out in high relief the way things we see jump out when we are having awarenesses of them.
This screen and background exercise on focusing was not just put in here to entertain you. It is to educate you and inform you that this phenomenon is going on. Take a break from the monitor for awhile here now, and walk around a bit in the room where you are sitting. And as you walk around, try to notice that whatever you are looking at in a given moment, you can also see the other things that lie around dimly in the background.
Do you see? When you are looking at anything, your mind becomes focused there, and yet you can be cognizant of other things around that are in the background. As soon as you move your vision to look at something else, the same thing happens. It comes into the foreground, and the things around move into the background.
Now your attention--and this is a very important point--is not your own. Except when you are doing awareness exercises like these (where there is an instruction of some kind and you are acting with your own volition for awhile). Throughout the rest of the hours during these days, your attention just happens to be wherever you find it at any given time . . . . . because it just happens to be there.
(I know you may disagree with me on this, but hear me out.)
For, it is not that people go around saying "Now I will put my attention here," "Now I will put my attention there." Sometimes their attention happens to be on the thinking mind that is telling the person to follow certain procedures that involve putting the attention in certain places, but that is just the thinking mind. It is not actually pointing the attention of experiencing in the real world of reality.
This is a good place to bring the strategy of beginner's mind into play--"I don't know." See if you can approach this question without beliefs or expectations. Simply keep a watch out, and see what you can see.
What we may find, if we begin to study this very carefully by having awarenesses, is that our attention just happens to be where it is at any given moment because it was attracted there by what is going on there.
One may be working with great resolve on writing a paper on something important, and if the word comes over the radio of some intriguing news event, one's attention is immediately attracted over there.
I don't wish to go into great detail describing this phenomenon here, especially as this is turning out to be a long day's class. I'd just like to invite you to "be on the watch" for this question in your life. See if you can spot anything popping up that pertains. See if you see things that come up in your awarenesses that may indicate to you that your attention happens to be where it is at that time because it has just been, as if passively, attracted to where it is.
The whole idea of learning mindful awareness has to do with learning how to direct your own attention by making your own intelligent choices in present moments--instead of just having your attention be drawn willy-nilly wherever it happens to be because of being attracted there involuntarily.
In practicing having awarenesses, what you are doing, in effect, is shifting the focus of your attention from where it just happens to be, involuntarily, at that time, and refocusing your attention voluntarily, that is, on purpose, on a point of interest that is chosen and experienced by your own intention.
This is the definition of "an awareness:" an awareness is any time you know something directly by the use of one of your five senses, which is brought into keen focus on purpose.
This entails intentionally shifting your focus from where it was, when you were dwelling in the realm of shadow, to where it is as you go into the realm of light. It has to be done on purpose. During the course of our ongoing daily lives, having awarenesses doesn't just happen. (Or some say it rarely just happens in extraordinary moments such as falling in love, or dying, or achieving one's most heartfelt aims.) Other than that, we have to have the presence of mind to choose it.
We choose to transform something that is dwelling in the background in the realm of shadows--something that doesn't just happen, and we make it happen, by having an awareness. We bring it into the realm of light by an act of volition.
We have to be able to remember, in order to choose that act.
And although one can say, technically, that one is in"focus" on the monitor screen, or in "focus" on the background, as one is reading along in this page, one is not "really in focus" until they allow what they are seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, or touching, to come all the way into vivid high relief in their perception of it. It is not "really in focus" until there is an awareness of it.
Ah, this class has gone on long enough! I'm tired. Let's get the heck out of here! I've got to get off for a few days tending the critters at the ranch where I work. That's a nice contrast with the buzzing electronic configurations of the Web for awhile. Back to space!
Take a day or two to practice the things that you have learned here today. Go through the exercises again, if it is not clear. Contemplate setting up a tailormade approach to practice on your own, that will keep having awarenesses as a part of your life daily.
It doesn't matter what you are doing when you are practicing having awarenesses. This doesn't take any extra time! You can practice having awarenesses while you are doing whatever you do during the days. You don't have to change what you do in order to experience what you do.
If you have a question, you can write it down under the Classroom Talk button. And I'll get back to you when I get back.
-- John
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