Thu 16 May 2002 17:23
just re-added the offending phrases from two days ago. this writing is so tame to anyone but myself.

I'm considering that the proper approach would have been:

[xxxxxxxx][fuck you].
[xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx][a vagina of my own by my side]

but decided not to bother.

Oh, me!

rumplestiltskin! rumplestiltskin!

vaginas and fuck you's and g-d knows what else,
oh my!

compassion without compassion is cruelty.
cruelty without cruelty is cruelty.

joanna's pubic hair--

you just can't write that about someone you love and care about!

what?

It's really not a big deal.

It doesn't matter whether or not you think it's a big deal.

It matters whether she thinks it is a big deal.

--It matters to _her_.

She may or may not be able to make it matter to me.

I don't even know if she cares. How much she cares. She knew my engagement in this black art long ago.

I was suprised to hear that carmen knew the address of my web site when Cynthia was asking why it wasn't .com

so- carmen could have read about my thoughts about her-- if she had the patience for more than a bit.

I think it is safe to say, I'm really the only one harmed by my own lack of judgement.

The others, written about, may be harmed by their lack of judgement in continuing to interact with someone known to behave in this way.

I do think I maintain some respect--I'm not recording every secret and detail of their lives. Not everything they tell me[/we experience together] shows up here.



_THE POINT WAS_ that my noticing of (1) the unexercised upper arm of one of those potentially attractive women of the forest, and (2) the beginning of the woman I love's pubic hair, takes me out of the gut emotional draw, biological sexual, social, who knows, and says, "Whoa! Reality!"

Women have bodies too that fatten, decay, (have pubic hair? -- I don't know what that was about), smell, menstruate, menopause, get cancer, give birth, get sick, get hurt,

o put in duration calculations between entries:

anyways.

I shall continue with


I shall be silent more, though there is already too much writing here to make it any less unprecious by doing so.

Remember: You're publishing this for you. For some reason, you get something out of the thought that others could read it. Other have read it. The results have yet to be poor. (though perhaps your time could be more helpfully spent in another way?   I hope I getting there...)


and there is the notetaking/library function as well.

p76 from _The life we are given_ george leonard & michael murphy (they are gods)

1859
do I want to be the kind of person who writes like this?

I need to get a lot more sleep.

what kind of person do I want to become?

wow. I really don't know.

I'll take some programming classes. Maybe I'll find a way/means of programming I like enough to make a living at it. Building things.

I don't know. That doesn't keep me from continuing to live. someone who has experiences I value. Someone who loves people. who can balance on extended feet an raise extended legs high effortlessly in any direction. who is healthy, and vital, but perhaps not balanced.

that's enough for now.

p76
The ITP Kata in Outline

Balance & Center--GRACE
Start in an upright stance, without shoes, feet shoulder-width apart, eyes open and soft. Spend a few seconds on each letter of the word:
G-ground
R-relax
A-aware
C-center
E-energize

The Water Series
1. Drill for water, 4 left, 4 right
2. Pump water, 6
3. Fountain, 6
4. Finger spray, 4
5. Half windmill, 4 (left, right, left, right)
6. Rowing, 10 left, 10 right, with reach and shake

Articulation
7. Shoulder rotation, 4 forward, 4 back
8. Head rotation, 4 each of 3 variations
9. Arm swing, 12
10. Pelvic rotation, 4 left, 4 right
11. Knee rotation, 4 left, 4 right

Floor Series
12. Hip joint rotation, 8
13. Quad tightening, 6x6'
14. Foot rotation, 4 counterclockwise, 4 clockwise
15. Hamstring stretch
16. Hip stretch
17. Quad stretch

(by the way-- some time ago I used the word "squeal" when I should have said "happy sound" (a high tone made, I think with the nose, not the vocal chords))

18. Back stretch

some guys were doing tai chi push hands at the same park I was practicing this-- pretty cool. A woman was doing capoiera, also.

19. Spinal curl
20. Curl-up 5 x 10"
21. Elongation stretch, 2
22. Groin stretch

Mini-Yoga
23. Sun salutation, 2
24. Spinal twist (left & right)
25. Deep relaxation

Transformational imaging

ten-minute meditation
(I didn't get to the last two)

25. Deep Relaxation
"Lie comfortably on your back in the relaxation position, eyes closed. Become aware of the rhythmic rise and fall of your chest and abdomen as you breathe. Let the floor support you.... In the next series of exercises, you'll be tensing then relaxing certain muscles. When tensing a particular muscle, do the best you can to leave the rest of your body completely relaxed. In some of these exercises you'll be lifting your legs or arms a few inches off the floor as you tense them. When you hear the signal to let them drop, release them completely, as if a string has been cut from a puppet. You'll be exhaling on each relaxation....

"Start by focusing your attention on the center of your abdomen....Now let your attention travel down to your right leg. Extend it out along the floor. Take a deep breath and lift your leg a few inches off the floor, tightening its muscles from the toes to the hip. Hold it. Hold it.... Exhale and let it drop. Roll your leg gently from side to side and relax it completely....Now send your attention to your left leg. Extend it out along the floor. Take a deep breath and lift it a few inches, tensing all its muscles from the toes to the hip....Tight, tight, tight...Let it drop. Roll it gently from side to side and relax it completely....

"Attention on your right arm and hand. Extend your arm out along the floor, tensing the muscles. Splay out the fingers, take a deep breath, make a fist, and raise your arm a few inches off the floor, tightening it all the way up to the shoulders....Hold it. Tight, tight....Let it drop. Roll it gently from side to side and relax your arm and hand completely....Attention on your left arm and hand. Extend your left arm out along the floor, tensing the muscles. Splay out the fingers, take a deep breath, make a fist, and raise your arm a few inches off the floor, tightening it all the way up to the shoulders.... Hold it. Tight, tight....Let it drop. Roll it gently from side to side and relax your arm and hand completely....

"Attention now to your pelvis and butt. Take a deep breath and tighten your pelvis and butt....Hold it a little longer.... Exhale and relax your pelvis and butt completely. Roll your lower body gently from side to side and relax completely....

"Now with a big incoming breath, puff up your abdomen like a large balloon...Make it a little larger....Open your mouth and let the air rush out...

"With an even larger incoming breath, puff up your chest like an even larger balloon....Larger....Open your mouth and let the air rush out...

"Attention to your shoulders. With a deep inhalation, raise and tighten your shoulders. Curl them forward, as if around your chest. Pull them far back, hard against the floor...Release your breath and relax your shoulders completely, working them down toward your feet....

"Roll your head gently from side to side....Bringing your head to the center, relax your neck and throat completely...

"Open your mouth wide. Take in a big breath. Move your jaw around, releasing all the tension. Yawn if you wish....Relax your mouth and jaw completely...

"Puff out your cheeks.... Suck in your cheeks....Relax your cheeks.

"Tighten your face. Make it tiny. Squeeze all the facial muscles together. Bring everything in close to your nose....Relax your face. Feel all the muscles in your face relaxing completely...

"Raise your eyebrows and wrinkle your forehead.... Relax your eyebrows and forehead....

"Now we're going to take an interior journey through your body, relaxing any subtle tensions without moving. We'll start the journey by focusing attention on your center. Let that attention move down to your legs, your feet, your toes. Relax your ankles, your lower legs, and your upper legs.... Let your attention now

How did "Fuck you" ever come to have such an emphatic/expressive insulting meaning? OED--

Let that attention move down to your legs, your feet, your toes. Relax your big toes, your second toes, your third, fourth, and fifth toes....Relax the soles of your feet and the tops of your feet. Relax your ankles, your lower legs, and your upper legs....Let your attention now turn to your arms, hands and fingers. Relax your thumbs, your index fingers, your third, fourth, and fifth fingers. Relax the palms of your hands and the backs of your hands...Relax your wrists, your lower arms, and your upper arms. Relax your shoulders. Let the tension melt away....Attention now to your buttocks and pelvis. Relax completely. Let all the tension melt away....And now your abdomen. Relax all the muscles and all the organs of your abdomen.... Relax your diaphragm [someone forgot to proof their dialog (3rd typo)]. Relax your chest, your heart, your lungs... Once again, relax your shoulders. Relax them completely, from the inside....Relax your lower back, your middle back, your upper back. Relax your throat, your jaw, your tongue. Relax your cheeks, your temples, your ears, your eyes, your eyelids. Relax your forehead, your scalp, the back of your neck....Relax all your body. Become a pure witness. Expereince your body in complete relaxation....Now become aware of your breath as it flows in and flows out with no effort on your part. Don't try to control it. Just witness it... Become aware of any thoughts that might be floating through your mind. Just observe them... Now take this opportunity to become aware of the peace and joy of existence itself, the invisible connections that join us with all beings, with all of the universe, with the miracle of life we are given."


--
p97
For example, if we constantly see ourselves losing a game, we are more likely to lose that game than...

If we habitually dwell upon people's shortcomings, we are less likely to respect them than...

p99 Doctors were right when they said that thoughts and feelings are intimately involved with feelings and flesh.

Yeah, there is a physiological cost to being negative, unfortunately.

p100
placebo research: human beings can alter their functioning without external devices.

to relieve an allergy through mental imagery can be considered a supreme athletic feat.

back to ITP Kata.

You've just finished a session of deep relaxation. You're lying on your back, feet shoulder width apart, hands on the

p124 there are no human cultures without music and dance.
Reading the exercise section--amazing. These guys are good.

, hands on the floor a few inches from your sides, palms up. Inhaling deeply, swing your arms out from your sides and around in a wide arc until they are above your head on the floor. Exhaling, bring your hands from above your head down the front of your body, palms toward your feet, as if you are pushing a wave of energy from above your head all the way past your feet. Your hands don't touch your body; with practice, however, you'll probably learn to feel what might be called an energy wave, not just on the frount of your body but all the way through it. As you create each wave, you might say, "My entire being is balanced, vital, and healthy," silently or aloud. You can use any affirmation you wish with this exercise, or none at all. The basic idea here is overall health, vitality and balance.

After creating several waves, you can move on to any part of your body you wish, using imaging (as will be described in the examples below) as an aid to provide preventive maintenance, repair defective functioning, or produce positive bodily changes ranging from what is considered normal to what would be considered extraordinary.

recommend employing positive statements expressed in the present tense. bring the condition that you intend to realize into sharp, positive present-tense focus in your consciousness.

don't expect immediate results (I could try my toenails--but would probably also have to do the vineagar process?); you're in this practice for the long term.
even a glimmering of yourself as you wish to be can bring effective results.

imaging ability may improve with practice.
kinesthetic images. Feeling images.

feel the way it would be if you had, say, a relaxed, supple, erect posture.

p102 not meant to supplant mainstream science.

all imaging done lying down (unless noted)


somehow by grounding every image in the marvelous physical entity we call a body, we significantly increase the effectiveness of the exercise.
recommend that you take a moment after each imaging exercise to lie still in an attitude of acceptance, thankfulness, and alignment with all that is.

to help improve vision:

Rub yor hands together briskly until the palms are warm. Cup your palms over your closed eyes to exclude all light and let your eyes relax completely. Take a few moments to gently massage your closed eyes with the pads of your fingers. Then cup your hands a few inches above your closed eyes and begin a stroking or massaging motion, as if the heat or other energy from your hands is somehow moving or otherwise affecting not only the surface but also the interior of the eyes. If at first you don't feel any effect int he eyes themselves--a sort of warmth, pressure, "magnetism," or presence--simply continue the exercise. Chances are you'll feel it after a few days' practice.

At the same time, begin to create a vivid mental image of your eyes as totally healthy and your vision as extremely sharp. Mentally, see the visible world as bright, sparkling, and crystal clear. If you're imaging not just normal but metanormal telescopic vision, create an image of a small bird in a distant tree. Note the color of its plumage, the precise shape of its bill, the sharp lines that delineate its eyes. Track the bird as it flits from one branch to another. See if you can pick out individual feathers.

If you wish to use words with mental images and the stroking motion of your hands, here are some samples: "My vision is crystal clear and my eyes are balanced, vital, and healthy." "The lenses of my eyes are clear, perfectly shaped, and completely healthy." "The aquaeous fluid in my lenses is pure and clear and circulating healthily." In every case, use words that feel right to you. Go with the ones that touch your heart.


To help prevent or reverse coronary artery disease. Rub your hands vigorously together. Place your left hand on your heart and your right hand on your left hand. Physically massage your heart area with a feeling of love and caring for your heart. Slide your right hand down to your hara or physical center, about an inch or two below your navel; leave it there as a strong connection between your center of feeling (the heart) and your center of action and intuition (the hara). Lift your left hand [heart] a few inches above your body and begin a stroking motion with the intentionality of "touching" your physical heart. With practice, just as in the case of your eyes, you'll probably be able to feel the sensation of your hand's energy in your heart itself.

Aware now of your heart's approximate shape and size, begin to image it as balanced, vital, healthy, and fully alive with radiant energy. "My entire heart is balanced, vital, and healthy." "My heart is pulsing in perfect rhythm." Then image or "feel" your heart's arteries. (If you wish, use a picture from an anatomy book as a model for your image.) Begin to create an image of your arteries as open, supple, and healthy. Repeat those words if you so desire while continuing the stroking motion of your left hand: "My heart's arteries are open, supple, and healthy." Use any words that feel right for you or no words at all, just a sharp, clear visual or feeling image of your coronary arteries as strongly pumping life-giving blood to all areas of your heart.

Slide your right hand up over your heart area and your left hand down to your belly. Repeat the above induction, this time reversing the two hands' roles. Be sure to "feel" all of the heart, including the top, bottom, and back, and all the arteries.

To help open your heart to others, to be a more loving person. Bring your left hand to your heart center and place your right hand over the left. Ask yourself, "What would it be like if I were a more loving person?" Begin to create an image of yourself as open-hearted and loving, a person who experiences deep compassion for others. Imagine meeting a person with whom you have been less than compassionate and loving. Bring an image of this person to your mind. Create a vivid mental and emotional experience of opening your heart to her or him. Tune-in to the present-tense feelings in your body as you do so. How does your body feel when you approach someone in this open-hearted manner? What are the particular qualities of the feeling? Explore different images. Try taking a deep breath and physically opening your arms wide, expanding your rib cage, making your heart available to others. Stay with it. Pick a vision that brings a thrill to your body, a feeling of the many possibilities that open up when you open your heart to someone previously unloved. Expand this feeling to encompass all of humanity.

To help reshape your body. Start by focusing strongly on the part of your physical body you want to change. Stroke your hands over it, increasing the awareness in that part. Bear in mind that energy follows attention. Sense the additional energy now localized in the body part given extra attention. Let's say you want to reduce your waistline. Here you might follow the example of the ITP practitioner who reduced his waist measurements by imagining a "girdle of fire" around his middle (see chapter 4). In his case, the image became an obsession, vivid in his consciousness not just while doing the Kata but during many of his waking hours. Successful transformation is almost always closely related to the practitioner's ability to produce and hold a vivid, positive, present-tense image--then, at times to surrender to grace. It's also important that you choose an imaging and induction procedure that's right for you, one that expresses your own personal being.

to help improve physical performance ....
Place your hand over your hara and your left hand over your right hand. Now bring to mind the race itself. Make everything vivid and present: the wind on your face as you're warming up, the tingling, fully alive feeling that goes along with removing your warm-up garb and standing at the starting line, the exuberant burst of energy at the starter's gun. Pick specific moments of the race: the feeling of power as you surge uphill, the release of joy of flying downhill, and finally the sense of triumph as you reach the finish line in :38 or less.

Or you might focus on your awareness on the cellular level, imaginging your red blood cells absorbing oxygen more efficiently than usual. Combine this visualization with several deep breaths, giving your red cells a chance to practice in the material realm what you are experiencing in the mental realm.

To increase your creativity. Start with the assumption that creativity is a natural human state and that, potentially, your ability to create, to put together the stuff of existence in novel ways, is limitless.

the brief interval between outgoing and incoming breath the "creative pause."

...
p106
repeat this cycle, touching your heart, solar plexus, hara, and pubis in turn, thus invoking bodily centers sometimes associated with thought, expressiveness, feeling, power, intuitive action, and generation.

see and feel yourself operating with effortless, joyful creativity. Experience the delight of making new connections, of gaining insights that seem to come from the creative void, from "nowhere." Experience the fun of creative work with others. Consider the creative possibilities in every life, not just in art and "creative writing" and the like, but in management, in love and sex, in gardening, entertaining, and household chores. Think of the creativity latent in every moment in time.

Finish this exercise as with every imaging exercise, in an attitude of acceptance, thanksgiving, and alignment with all that is.


We offer these samples to trigger your creativity. We believe that you can find a uniquely personal imaging procedure for any transformation of your body and pysche you sincerely desire. Our experience has shown us that such procedures are highly effective.

Keep practicing diligently and you can be reasonably sure the gains will eventually come.


p107 The ITP kata: medidation.
10 min period of meditation.

By "meditation" we mean the disciplined observation of thoughts, feelings, impulses, and sensations, as well as the spontaneous turning of the heart and mind toward a Presence beyond the ordinary self. This practice, which combines self-observation with contemplative prayer helps pracitioners contact new depths of being, awareness, and delight.

p108
A new buoyancy and sense of freedom

In the ITP Kata, meditation begins as soon as you have finished imaging and induction. Assume a sitting position with back straight, on a floor cushion with your legs crossed, or in a chair. An erect sitting posture, either on a cushion that elevates your seat from the ground or in a straight-backed chair, will help you remain alert for the exercise to follow. It will also help prevent the muscular soreness that poor posture causes. If during the exercise you find yourself slumping, straigten your spine and rebalance yourself. During meditation, a good physical attitude facilitates a good psychological attitude. An alert but relaxed posture tends to produce an alertly poised state of mind. In this, the body and the inner life mirror one another.

Place your attention a few feet in front of you. Do not stare or strain to concentrate. Instead, maintain a relaxed focus, as if you were gazing at a gentle stream. This style of attention, this soft downward look, is not as fatiguing as staring. It also helps to keep your mind from drifting. You can, however, meditate with eyes closed, but, if you do, you might have a tendency to drift into sleep. Meditation with eyes open will help you stay relaxed but alert.

When your posture is comfortable, let your belly expand. Make sure that your breath is not confined to your chest. Full, relaxed respiration, in which both the lower and upper abdomen are involved, is more conducive to meditation than constricted breathing, which typically causes or is caused by anxiety. Anchor your attention in the rise and fall of your breath. Focus on your lower abdomen and return to it when your mind wanders.

As your posture, gaze, and respiration join to form a state of alert relaxation, remain calmly present to your stream of consciousness, to both its familiar and unfamiliar patterns. Do not judge yourself, for in meditation of this kind there is no "good" or "bad." At this stage of practice, you are simply deepening your self-awareness, whatever it brings to light.  Your are getting more intimate with yourself. You are gently exercising new control of your mind and exploring new depths of your body and soul. Here are some questions meditation beginners typically ask.

p108
What do you do if you can't escape a repetitive thought or particular mood?
If an object of awareness won't pass, simply study it and let it unfold. If it is a relatively familiar set of thoughts or feelings, you can note new subtleties and nuances in it. No two moods or mental pictures are exactly the same, even when they seem to be. Your inner life is endlessly mutable, and your most familiar patterns of consciousness almost always contain something new. Wait for the newness to reveal itself. Disciplined self-observation can ... If you remain calmly present to a persistent image [the number of typos in this book is astonishing] or mood, you might see an old trauma in a new light, discover new qualities in a familiar situation, or find new solutions to a pressing problem.

Does the relinquishment of thoughts intefere with creative thinking? Don't we risk losing a bright idea if we let it go? No. Experience teaches us that creative insights persist. As writers, we have learned that good ideas come back when formal meditation is done. If an idea is worth remembering, you will remember it.

What do you do about physical discomfort Straigten your back, rebalance yourself, and relax [tony's: the pain is actually very changing]. If the discomfort persists, sit through it. One of meditation's great lessons is that pain can be released through calm awareness of it. There is a profound anology here to those problems in life that are dealt with best by embracing them without avoidance.

What do you do with your hands? They can be placed on your knees, or cupped in your lap with thumbs touching. Experiment, then stick with one method so that you can deepen your connection without physical distraction.

Why does one need to sit still? Because physical stillness facilitates mental stillness, and complex set of physiological changes called the "relaxation response" (see p. 114). Eventually, the centered poise produced by sitting meditation can be taken into every activity of everyday life. Meditation in action is a primary goal of integral practice.

Can one repeat a word, a mantra, to help focus attention? Yes. Mental repitition of a phraze has long been used in meditation as a concentration device. Once you have settled on a concentration method that works, whether focusing on your breath, a mantra, or your stream of consciousness, stick with it. Moving from one tech to another can distract you from the deeper rewards of meditation.


for some reason coffee & liquor with that friendly guy and his wife in sweden came to mind back during that last paragraph.

p 110
Sometimes meditation gives rise to strange experiences. How should they be dealt with? Many an unusual experience is reported by meditators, among them distortions of body image, perceptions of auras, sensations of rising from the ground, and auditions of sounds with no apparent physical causes. Remain calmly present to such experiences, as if they are ordinary thoughts and feelings. By staying centered, you will let them reveal whatever lessons they can teach. They might be first glimpses of metanormal abilities. Simply let them go until they subside entirely, or let them unfold to reveal a latent capacity.

How do we know if we are becoming enlightened? We do not use the term "enlightenment" in our ITP programs, partly because it is used in different and sometimes confusing ways, and partly because we emphasize practice rather than specific outcomes. If by "enlightenment" you seimply mean the greater goods of meditiation, those will come by degrees, often unexpectedly, especially if you do not compulsively strive for them.

Some books about personal growth talk about a higher, truer, or deeper being beyond one's ordinary sense of self. Does meditation help us discover it? Meditation deepens an awareness that transcends your ordinary functioning. As you continue meditating, you realize that you are more than any idea or mental picture, more than any emotion, more than any impulse, more than any bodily process, more than any pattern of experiences wth which you typically identfy. That something more, you will find, brings an unshakeable security, feedom, and delight. You might experience it as a boundless space, or unbroken essence, that connects you with everything. From it, you can realized new mastery of mind and body.

This depth beyond ordinary feeling and thought is given different names by sages and philosophers and is characterized in different ways in the various sacred traditions. But however it is described and no matter how it blossoms, it produces a new buoyancy and unity with the world at large.

The deeper being that meditation brings is its own reward. It is also helpful--and we believe necessary--for the practical success of integral discipline. That is the case because its regenerative freedom helps cushion the readjustments and restructurings of body and mind required for significant change. Its all-encompassing embrace helps sustain a radical renewal of our entire organism. Because it transcends our particular parts, it helps to rise above the many obstacles to growth we encounter.
.