06-15-2005, 12:00 AM
Unlocking the Attention
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Before practicing any of the following series of exercises we want to engage our senses. Otherwise the practice becomes an intellectual activity and limited to what the eyes can see. When we engage the senses, we achieve a holistic perception of the world. Touch, tasting, hearing, and sight no longer separate us from experience, but make us one with what we perceive. This is not a poetic kind of communion. It is a deep knowing of our interconnectedness. So spend a few minutes before you begin... activate your senses.
Take your pulse, but do not look at your watch. Don't count your heartbeat. Experience the tide that flows through you. This is your tempo. No one else has a rhythm exactly like yours.
Now bring your attention to your breath. First, cover one nostril, and then the other. Which are you breathing through? We breath predominately through one nostril for a few hours, and then the other. Follow your breath, down the windpipe, into the lungs. What does it feel like? Raspy or smooth?
Next engage your sense of smell. What is your scent? Everyone has a unique scent. Visit the kitchen. Inhale different scents. Garlic, vinegar, etc. Most mammals rely first on their sense of smell. A polar bear is able to smell a sealed 30 miles away. A lion will smell your fear.
Engage your sense of touch. The skin is the largest sensory organ in the body. It is fabricated from the same tissue as your brain and nervous system. The skin is alive. In erupts when it is angry, glows when it is pampered. Caress your face, feel your lips, trace their entire circumference. Next become aware of your feet. Wiggle your toes in your shoes. Are you aware of the temperature and feel inside your shoes?
Engage your sense of taste. What does your skin taste like? What does your blood taste like? What does water taste like? Take a drink. Allow the coolness to radiate through your body.
Finally close your eyes, take a deep breath, and listen. Observehe sounds around you? Identify as many sounds as you can. Are they all man-made?
The Jaguar Apprentice must develop a kind of "common sense" that bridges all the senses. They learn to taste fire, to touch the fragrance of a flower, and to smell an image. They learn to attain immediate perception, before an experience is divided among the senses. This blending of sensory perception seems strange only to those who have distanced themselves from a direct primordial experience of the natural world. Musicians often report hearing the air rushing past wing feathers as they observe birds in flight.
An exercise in "common sense" involves "tasting" your emotions. Become aware of the taste in your mouth. Is a sweet? Sour? Woody? Metallic? Now, recall an incident that made you feel sad. Notice if the taste in your mouth changes. Now, recall a pleasurable situation, and notice again how the taste in your mouth changes. Now, recall an instance when you felt fear. Can you taste fear? Can you taste love? Joy?
Unlocking the Attention
This practice is an eye movement exercise that seems to recalibrate our neural network. It resets our sensory coordinates to zero, in less than 30 seconds. Otherwise our sensory perception remains locked in the first attention, the tunnel vision of ordinary reality. In this exercise will use the "unlocking practice" to free our kinesthetic sense and perceive the rivers of light. Once you can feel energy, you can translate the sensation into an image through our "common sense".
Imagine that your eyes are like the face of a clock. The eyes act like a pointing device and signal the region of our brain we employ for different activities. For example, many right-handed people look toward ten o'clock when performing mathematical computations, and toward two o'clock when recalling their favorite songs. Checks is out with a co-worker. Ask them to add a 27 plus 19, then observe in which direction they turn their eyes. Everyone responds differently, yet their eyes always point in the same direction every time. Ask them to recall the smell of freshly baked bread, or a song. Observe the direction their eyes look toward. These are the perceptual coordinates of the first attention, ordinary reality.
Unlocking the Attention involves rotating your eyes with your eyelids shut, to clear the perceptual screen.
In a standing position, close your eyes and move them (without moving your head) from left to right, up to down, upper left to lower right, upper right to lower left, and vis versa.... meaning go through that series again in the opposite direction. Now rotate your eyes in a big circle, left to right three times and then right to left three times. Repeat that once more, rotating your eyes in small circles this time, eyelids shut.
Bring your hands together in the spider position, with fingertips and thumbtips touching, but keeping a small space between the fingers and palms. Your hands should be resting gently against your chest. Take two breaths, through the nose. Then, through the mouth, execute a deep "Trigger sigh". You must find that "settling within your center". "Sigh" again, if necessary.
Next, separate your hands and shake them vigorously from side to side for about 30 seconds. Shake them as if you were trying to shake water from your fingers. Now relax and allow them to become limp. Bring your hands together again in the spider pose. Gradually, separate your palms, keeping the fingertips together. Be of aware of the feeling in your hands. Cool? Warm? Do you sense a slight electrical sensation between the palms? Now, separate your hands slowly, remaining aware of your fingertips. Do you feel a tingling in the pads at the tips of your fingers? See how far you can separate your fingers and still maintain that tingling or electrical sensation. Imagine that you can sense the luminous threads that connect your fingertips to each other. These are extensions of the rivers of light (the ten principal rivers run throughout the body, passing through the hands and fingertips, and when we bring our hands together in a spider pose, we balance the energies that flow through these rivers).
Practice this until you can sense your luminous fibers (rivers) with your hands 12 inches apart. Find out which hand is more sensitive. Can you sense the energy better with your left or your right fingertips?
Some of you will have immediate success with this technique. Please share your results with everyone. We will move on in about 14 days, learning to scan the membrane of our luminous cocoon and read our light wells.
Unlocking the Attention 2 and 3
Hopefully, everyone has had a chance to work with this technique, extending their hands at least 12 inches. Also, establishing a power hand is a primary objective.
Here I will share two additional options for this technique. The first option is an effort to sense the skin of the luminous cocoon. The second is a technique to work with the light wells. As a suggestion, work a minimum of two weeks with each of these techniques. The idea is to become familiar with our energetic form.
Unlocking the Attention 2
The idea here is to learn to scan the membrane of the luminous cocoon. In a standing position, close your eyes and do the unlocking practice. Become aware of your breathing. In all of these unlocking practices, pay close attention to the breath. Do not attempt to regulate it, simply observe very carefully. This keeps the mind busy, while the fingers do the walking!
Execute a Trigger Sigh. Shake the hands vigorously for 30 seconds and bring them to the spider position. Slowly separate your hands one to two inches. Then slowly turn your hands, so that your palms are facing out, away from the body. Gradually fan your hands until they are about a foot away from your belly (if you live in a rural area, you must extend your hands two feet from the body). Move your hands back and forth slowly, as if you were wiping a window clean, and try to sense the inner membrane or skin of the luminous energy cocoon. Focus on your breathing. Feel with your fingers. Is it smooth, does it have texture? Is it elastic, does it yield, or is it firm? Does it feel warm or cool? Can you push it out and expand it? Are there ridges and pockets and it? These usually indicate places where our luminous membrane is weak and where we leak energy or can be penetrated by energies and emotions belonging to others.
When you've finished, return your hands to the spider position and take a couple breaths. Practice this exercise unto you are able to clearly sense that texture and feel of the membrane of your luminous energy form.
Unlocking the Attention 3
We will use a similar exercise to sense the wells. In this technique we will work with each of the Earth wells, the lower 5. Begin by Unlocking the Attention, while in a standing position. Execute a Trigger Sigh. Shake your hands vigorously for 30 seconds and bring them to the spider position. Remain mindful of your breath.
Now, separate the hands one to two inches. Slowly, bring the palms of your open hands about three inches below your navel, facing inward, very close to your skin. Stay with your breath. Imagine your wells as funnels of energy, spinning just outside your skin like whirlpools of light. The outer lip of the funnel lies two to three inches outside the body, while most of the length of the funnel resides within the body. Find the outer edge of the funnel of your second well. Sense it's circumference and the energy whirling within it. Gradually, bring your power fingers into the well, going in toward the body. What does it feel like? Is it cool, warm, or neutral? Bring your attention to the very tips of your power fingers and sense what you feel on the pad. Is it tingly, soft, or rough? The belly well is associated with the fight or flight response. When we experience fear or danger, we immediately register it in this well. While you explore your second well with the tips of your fingers, recall when you last felt truly afraid. Do you notice a difference in the feel and texture? Everyone's senses energy differently. What you register as icy someone else might sense as a warm. The second well is the easiest to read, as it is the seat of our passions and emotions, and holds a high charge.
Repeat the exercise with the base while. Notice if the texture and density of the well changes when you recall a time when you felt safe and protected, perhaps when you were young. Now recall a time when you did not feel safe, or you woke up from a nightmare. How is the energy different?
Now try sensing the third well, the solar plexus. Recall a time when you were acknowledged and recognized for an achievement. Does the texture of the energy seem to change? Recall a time you felt ashamed.
Now move up to the fourth well, the heart center. Recall when you were in love, when you first met your spouse or partner. Now recall a time when you felt abandoned or heart broken. Notice the changes in the quality of the energy.
Next, try sensing the fifth well, the throat. Recall a time when you experienced great inner peace, perhaps during meditation. Now, recall a time when you were not heard by a loved one. How is the energy different?
When you have finished, return the hands to the spider position, take a couple breaths to return to balance.
(summerized from the Tome of the Jaguar)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Up to this point, we have been working with exercises that give a sense of the texture and intensity of the energy within us. We want to develop the next stage, the qualitative measures. What information does the energy contain? What are the stories, the joy, and the pain? To achieve this, we must activate the Second Attention. In three or four weeks, after we've had a chance to work with these techniques, we'll embark on the following practices:
Nesting: building a sacred space. This is a two to three week practice and constructs a protective space around us and possibly one other.
Vision Building: constructing extracerebral rivers of light from the third eye and the heart, to the visual cortex. This exercise could take between one month and five years, and will be an ongoing practice. This is "seeing", or the Second Attention.
Stalking the Past: facing our past through a powerful technique, involving a partial fast, intensive writing, and a 2 to 4 hour vision quest. Hopefully, we'll be able to do this sometime in August or September. As stated previously, this will take three days and two nights, with an optional one-week duration for those that cannot isolate themselves for the three days.
I would ask that anyone working with these efforts, without results, PLEASE ASK QUESTIONS, either by e-mail or in the forum. There's nothing being given here that requires anything special. Everyone can do these things. No editing was done.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Before practicing any of the following series of exercises we want to engage our senses. Otherwise the practice becomes an intellectual activity and limited to what the eyes can see. When we engage the senses, we achieve a holistic perception of the world. Touch, tasting, hearing, and sight no longer separate us from experience, but make us one with what we perceive. This is not a poetic kind of communion. It is a deep knowing of our interconnectedness. So spend a few minutes before you begin... activate your senses.
Take your pulse, but do not look at your watch. Don't count your heartbeat. Experience the tide that flows through you. This is your tempo. No one else has a rhythm exactly like yours.
Now bring your attention to your breath. First, cover one nostril, and then the other. Which are you breathing through? We breath predominately through one nostril for a few hours, and then the other. Follow your breath, down the windpipe, into the lungs. What does it feel like? Raspy or smooth?
Next engage your sense of smell. What is your scent? Everyone has a unique scent. Visit the kitchen. Inhale different scents. Garlic, vinegar, etc. Most mammals rely first on their sense of smell. A polar bear is able to smell a sealed 30 miles away. A lion will smell your fear.
Engage your sense of touch. The skin is the largest sensory organ in the body. It is fabricated from the same tissue as your brain and nervous system. The skin is alive. In erupts when it is angry, glows when it is pampered. Caress your face, feel your lips, trace their entire circumference. Next become aware of your feet. Wiggle your toes in your shoes. Are you aware of the temperature and feel inside your shoes?
Engage your sense of taste. What does your skin taste like? What does your blood taste like? What does water taste like? Take a drink. Allow the coolness to radiate through your body.
Finally close your eyes, take a deep breath, and listen. Observehe sounds around you? Identify as many sounds as you can. Are they all man-made?
The Jaguar Apprentice must develop a kind of "common sense" that bridges all the senses. They learn to taste fire, to touch the fragrance of a flower, and to smell an image. They learn to attain immediate perception, before an experience is divided among the senses. This blending of sensory perception seems strange only to those who have distanced themselves from a direct primordial experience of the natural world. Musicians often report hearing the air rushing past wing feathers as they observe birds in flight.
An exercise in "common sense" involves "tasting" your emotions. Become aware of the taste in your mouth. Is a sweet? Sour? Woody? Metallic? Now, recall an incident that made you feel sad. Notice if the taste in your mouth changes. Now, recall a pleasurable situation, and notice again how the taste in your mouth changes. Now, recall an instance when you felt fear. Can you taste fear? Can you taste love? Joy?
Unlocking the Attention
This practice is an eye movement exercise that seems to recalibrate our neural network. It resets our sensory coordinates to zero, in less than 30 seconds. Otherwise our sensory perception remains locked in the first attention, the tunnel vision of ordinary reality. In this exercise will use the "unlocking practice" to free our kinesthetic sense and perceive the rivers of light. Once you can feel energy, you can translate the sensation into an image through our "common sense".
Imagine that your eyes are like the face of a clock. The eyes act like a pointing device and signal the region of our brain we employ for different activities. For example, many right-handed people look toward ten o'clock when performing mathematical computations, and toward two o'clock when recalling their favorite songs. Checks is out with a co-worker. Ask them to add a 27 plus 19, then observe in which direction they turn their eyes. Everyone responds differently, yet their eyes always point in the same direction every time. Ask them to recall the smell of freshly baked bread, or a song. Observe the direction their eyes look toward. These are the perceptual coordinates of the first attention, ordinary reality.
Unlocking the Attention involves rotating your eyes with your eyelids shut, to clear the perceptual screen.
In a standing position, close your eyes and move them (without moving your head) from left to right, up to down, upper left to lower right, upper right to lower left, and vis versa.... meaning go through that series again in the opposite direction. Now rotate your eyes in a big circle, left to right three times and then right to left three times. Repeat that once more, rotating your eyes in small circles this time, eyelids shut.
Bring your hands together in the spider position, with fingertips and thumbtips touching, but keeping a small space between the fingers and palms. Your hands should be resting gently against your chest. Take two breaths, through the nose. Then, through the mouth, execute a deep "Trigger sigh". You must find that "settling within your center". "Sigh" again, if necessary.
Next, separate your hands and shake them vigorously from side to side for about 30 seconds. Shake them as if you were trying to shake water from your fingers. Now relax and allow them to become limp. Bring your hands together again in the spider pose. Gradually, separate your palms, keeping the fingertips together. Be of aware of the feeling in your hands. Cool? Warm? Do you sense a slight electrical sensation between the palms? Now, separate your hands slowly, remaining aware of your fingertips. Do you feel a tingling in the pads at the tips of your fingers? See how far you can separate your fingers and still maintain that tingling or electrical sensation. Imagine that you can sense the luminous threads that connect your fingertips to each other. These are extensions of the rivers of light (the ten principal rivers run throughout the body, passing through the hands and fingertips, and when we bring our hands together in a spider pose, we balance the energies that flow through these rivers).
Practice this until you can sense your luminous fibers (rivers) with your hands 12 inches apart. Find out which hand is more sensitive. Can you sense the energy better with your left or your right fingertips?
Some of you will have immediate success with this technique. Please share your results with everyone. We will move on in about 14 days, learning to scan the membrane of our luminous cocoon and read our light wells.
Unlocking the Attention 2 and 3
Hopefully, everyone has had a chance to work with this technique, extending their hands at least 12 inches. Also, establishing a power hand is a primary objective.
Here I will share two additional options for this technique. The first option is an effort to sense the skin of the luminous cocoon. The second is a technique to work with the light wells. As a suggestion, work a minimum of two weeks with each of these techniques. The idea is to become familiar with our energetic form.
Unlocking the Attention 2
The idea here is to learn to scan the membrane of the luminous cocoon. In a standing position, close your eyes and do the unlocking practice. Become aware of your breathing. In all of these unlocking practices, pay close attention to the breath. Do not attempt to regulate it, simply observe very carefully. This keeps the mind busy, while the fingers do the walking!
Execute a Trigger Sigh. Shake the hands vigorously for 30 seconds and bring them to the spider position. Slowly separate your hands one to two inches. Then slowly turn your hands, so that your palms are facing out, away from the body. Gradually fan your hands until they are about a foot away from your belly (if you live in a rural area, you must extend your hands two feet from the body). Move your hands back and forth slowly, as if you were wiping a window clean, and try to sense the inner membrane or skin of the luminous energy cocoon. Focus on your breathing. Feel with your fingers. Is it smooth, does it have texture? Is it elastic, does it yield, or is it firm? Does it feel warm or cool? Can you push it out and expand it? Are there ridges and pockets and it? These usually indicate places where our luminous membrane is weak and where we leak energy or can be penetrated by energies and emotions belonging to others.
When you've finished, return your hands to the spider position and take a couple breaths. Practice this exercise unto you are able to clearly sense that texture and feel of the membrane of your luminous energy form.
Unlocking the Attention 3
We will use a similar exercise to sense the wells. In this technique we will work with each of the Earth wells, the lower 5. Begin by Unlocking the Attention, while in a standing position. Execute a Trigger Sigh. Shake your hands vigorously for 30 seconds and bring them to the spider position. Remain mindful of your breath.
Now, separate the hands one to two inches. Slowly, bring the palms of your open hands about three inches below your navel, facing inward, very close to your skin. Stay with your breath. Imagine your wells as funnels of energy, spinning just outside your skin like whirlpools of light. The outer lip of the funnel lies two to three inches outside the body, while most of the length of the funnel resides within the body. Find the outer edge of the funnel of your second well. Sense it's circumference and the energy whirling within it. Gradually, bring your power fingers into the well, going in toward the body. What does it feel like? Is it cool, warm, or neutral? Bring your attention to the very tips of your power fingers and sense what you feel on the pad. Is it tingly, soft, or rough? The belly well is associated with the fight or flight response. When we experience fear or danger, we immediately register it in this well. While you explore your second well with the tips of your fingers, recall when you last felt truly afraid. Do you notice a difference in the feel and texture? Everyone's senses energy differently. What you register as icy someone else might sense as a warm. The second well is the easiest to read, as it is the seat of our passions and emotions, and holds a high charge.
Repeat the exercise with the base while. Notice if the texture and density of the well changes when you recall a time when you felt safe and protected, perhaps when you were young. Now recall a time when you did not feel safe, or you woke up from a nightmare. How is the energy different?
Now try sensing the third well, the solar plexus. Recall a time when you were acknowledged and recognized for an achievement. Does the texture of the energy seem to change? Recall a time you felt ashamed.
Now move up to the fourth well, the heart center. Recall when you were in love, when you first met your spouse or partner. Now recall a time when you felt abandoned or heart broken. Notice the changes in the quality of the energy.
Next, try sensing the fifth well, the throat. Recall a time when you experienced great inner peace, perhaps during meditation. Now, recall a time when you were not heard by a loved one. How is the energy different?
When you have finished, return the hands to the spider position, take a couple breaths to return to balance.
(summerized from the Tome of the Jaguar)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Up to this point, we have been working with exercises that give a sense of the texture and intensity of the energy within us. We want to develop the next stage, the qualitative measures. What information does the energy contain? What are the stories, the joy, and the pain? To achieve this, we must activate the Second Attention. In three or four weeks, after we've had a chance to work with these techniques, we'll embark on the following practices:
Nesting: building a sacred space. This is a two to three week practice and constructs a protective space around us and possibly one other.
Vision Building: constructing extracerebral rivers of light from the third eye and the heart, to the visual cortex. This exercise could take between one month and five years, and will be an ongoing practice. This is "seeing", or the Second Attention.
Stalking the Past: facing our past through a powerful technique, involving a partial fast, intensive writing, and a 2 to 4 hour vision quest. Hopefully, we'll be able to do this sometime in August or September. As stated previously, this will take three days and two nights, with an optional one-week duration for those that cannot isolate themselves for the three days.
I would ask that anyone working with these efforts, without results, PLEASE ASK QUESTIONS, either by e-mail or in the forum. There's nothing being given here that requires anything special. Everyone can do these things. No editing was done.