Bill's Notes II

[Bill29ish]

It's been almost three months I guess since I've updated. Interesting.
My primary practice has become somatic again. In looking directly at the body it is clear that it exists without boundaries or definite form, and that my body is itself of the same fiber as everything else. I believe the american poet Walt Whitman said something similar. No buddhist influence for him as far as i know. But what i am working with goes beyond buddhism, and is simply as much as possible experiencing what is to be human without filters. Another way to say it would be directly experiencing sensations without overlay. I have been in a dark nightish period that has felt quiet heavy at times. It is not a matter of getting caught in content, rather the body, this pattern of sensations, has often felt a heaviness akin to depression or a feeling of excessive energy similar to anxiety. There is frequently the feeling of being at sea with no anchor. I have no idea where this goes, and that's ok. I trust it.
At some point in mid-october there came a shift involved with content and the processing of content. This was after a long and persistent period combining noting of thoughts and bodily reactions to thoughts. I remember that it came up suddenly as a feeling of unpleasant numbness, thoughts did not seem less in frequency but there was a pronounced sense of the absence of agency in relation to thoughts. This feeling of agentless thinking had not been experienced as strongly in a couple of years. In the aftermath thoughts became more wispy and there was a decrease in the narrowing of attention related to thoughts or the suggestion of inner/outer. Things felt much calmer and there seemed little differentiation between thinking and not thinking. It felt like equanimity without any of the associated mental drift or sense of spaciousness. Whatever it was has become normalized, and like every other shift, in some sense unalterable and in some ways variable to change. I guess summing it up now a couple of months later it felt like some contracting reflex in the mind connected to thinking loosened up in a major way. In the period since I have experienced occasional identification and negative contractions in relation to thinking so it is neither seamless or imperturbable.

[Bill29ish]

more immediacy. more naturalness. more intimacy. less dissasociation. less detachment. less splitting off.