Have you ever considered creating a container of dedicated meditation or spiritual practice? If you’re like me and benefit from some structure, it can be a wonderful way to deepen your practice and engage the learning that is possible from repetition. I’ll be slowly unpacking that learning with you over the upcoming months, but if you’re interested in a behind the scenes look, continuing reading or start with Part 1 of these field notes.
I began a 90 day Yoga Nidra Sadhana in January of this year. It coincided with a series of surgeries, and created a container for deep healing that wasn’t only physical.
The second 45 days carried a weight of wondering how to maintain the integrity of the practice once settled back into “regular life.”
I experienced a lot of resistance at times. I would find myself procrastinating, waiting until very late in the day to practice. Distractions were compelling and I sometimes felt impossibly, intolerably “bored with resting” even though my body required it. Let’s be honest though, my mind needed the rest too, which was another layer of learning: allowing the mind to be slow and resisting the urge to explore every idea. For the last three months my body reined supreme and I have been entirely humbled by its wisdom.
It wasn’t available to me financially or logistically to go away on retreat for 3 months, but I did my best to recreate elements of it while still upholding certain responsibilities. I would carve out small stretches of 2-4 days at a time to have a more dedicated practice with minimal distraction, which allowed me to navigate transitions between sheltered and exposed experiences.
(I created this container with inspiration and guidance from the writing of Tracee Stanley, who has been an incredible teacher for me.)
Those weekly transitions became easier, its own potent skill, but I continued to grapple with concerns of how to carry the practice forward.
What is the balance between attention and action? How do you cope with feelings of powerlessness or hopelessness when faced with big questions?
Where is the place of refuge when we are bombarded with information, that may activate deep and complicated feelings? How does one bring a “restful attitude” towards every day tasks?
How does one define Truth, and find the balance between trusting yourself and becoming seduced by the Ego?
How do you take the wisdom experienced in deep states of connection and translate it to the realm of the mundane?
How would I do life differently with what I know now? What do I know now??
I initially attempted to write a similarly structured essay to the first, that offered some concrete points for reflection. But it didn’t feel right— it was too tidy, too linear.
The whole first version could be summed up as “your attention is currency, use it wisely.” There were themes about trust and confidence in oneself, which I’ll explore another time.
What surprised me most about this experience, is how much of my practice yielded to exploration of death and dying (both literal and the ego), and distinctions between the dream and reality.
What surprised me most about this experience, is how much of my practice yielded to exploration of death and dying (both literal and the ego), and distinctions between the dream and reality.
The first glimpses appeared late last year, when I became overwhelmed with the concern that I stopped breathing during meditation. Somehow I expected themes of death to be more high-minded and symbolic, but it was the first of many times it emerged in a strikingly literal context. Am I dead right now? Can you forget to breathe? Is someone about to break into my house and kill me and I wouldn’t know it because I’m so deeply relaxed? Is someone I know dying right now? What will happen to the spirit of my dog when he dies, is that fact that I just thought that evidence that he’s about to die?
It seemed so neurotic!
And the temptation was to assess the “truth” of such interruptions. Following the suggestion of my friend and fellow practitioner, I practiced softening in these moments and allowing the thought to be incomplete. Observing the one who was thinking, staying with the feeling itself, the fear.
It wasn’t a wholly unfamiliar feeling.
I have had three experiences when, although it was not a technical “Near Death Experience” (the heart stopping and being clinically dead for a period of time), I did come close enough to have a complete shift of consciousness.
Time slowed down, but also held the totality of my entire life. My vision was altered, vibrant and dreamlike, alongside the acute awareness that I might die, or in one case, if I don’t do something right now I’m definitely going to die.
The familiar part was that underneath the “thinking,” if you could call it that, was a neutral quality. A sense of “yes, that could happen….” without a value judgement. Maybe… even a relief, or comfort experienced through proximity to something divine.
My experiences with accident and injury required me to redefine who I thought I was in order to psychologically cope with acquiring disability, which changed my relationship to my body. And these contemplations of death and identity deepened that sense of love for having a body, while also knowing that I am not my body.
I’ve written before about the idea of “core self” or “core energy.” And another perspective to consider is one’s True Nature as described in the Yoga Sutras or concepts of self in Buddhist texts. In whichever context you choose, you may find yourself asking who am I beyond my personality, beliefs, attitudes, and experiences? Who is the me that preceded these ideas? Even in infancy we have a version of this, the Self without linear or “conscious” thought, but we can also extend this question to past lifetimes.
A simple refrain for creating the distinction might be to occasionally interrupt the flow of thoughts and ask who is the one observing now?
On the surface this practice can seem similar to dissociation, especially the decreasing awareness of the body, but it’s a process of distinguishing between the physical body as a vessel, the mind as a flow of thoughts and ideas, and the energy or awareness that lives inside.
Much like in Reiki practice it’s a form of embodiment that extends beyond the physical. So deep inside that the body is the landscape, and the self is the body. Discovering the difference between our core self and personality offers the flexibility to see all personal change as possible. When I believe in this depth of personal change, it is easier to dream about collective change and believe it is possible.
I think a lot about dreams and their meaning, and I’ve always been struck by a passage in Be Here Now when Baba Ram Dass says that the dreaming self is an other dimensional self, an actual version of you that you can observe and interact with in the realm of dreaming consciousness. It’s interesting to juxtapose that with the Gestalt perspective that all elements of the dream— the people, the objects, and setting— are representations of you.
As I gathered more of these experiences finding that frequency of self that is without thought and personality, I came to the inquiry of whether my waking self was another “dreaming self.” I held the awareness of what I consider my identity as but one version or expression, with certain characteristics and a certain style that exists in the context of this particular life. And that the space of one’s true nature or core self is the reality that we often forget to engage with directly.
I digress— I am not the first person to find myself spontaneously in such inquiry, nor will I be the last. Perhaps that sounds like detachment from the earthly reality of our lives, but I don’t see it that way. It has created more presence, and revitalized a sense of investment in day-to-day life while simultaneously removing the idea that life is a pass/fail affair.
It has opened the door to more creativity, flexibility, engagement, hope, and tolerance for disappointment.
Inward Vision 