Experimental Self-Inquiry #1
The 'presence mantra'
This new series consists of provocations to stimulate your body’s deep instinct to learn.
Written instructions are provided to invite you to be the author of your own process.
The practices can be explored briefly as a way to simply create a new pattern in the flow of your day or at greater length to allow for deeper investigations of your patterns and potentials.
Initial postings will be available to all subscribers. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber. By doing so, you can help me to publish this series one day as a book.
Paid subscribers will also be able to access to audio instructions. Mixing guided audio with self-paced practice via text will yield you the most creative potential to find your own way.
This first experimental self-inquiry is preceded by an introductory overview of the series.
Introduction
This book contains 52 experimental self-inquiry practices for you to explore.
Basic instructions are given for each inquiry. Also included is a discussion to provide you with further context. My aim is to help you understand the unique value of each practice so you can define longer term inquiries that fit your life’s unique footprints.
I suggest you read through both the procedure and discussion before with engaging each new inquiry. You may also choose to begin through direct experience, only considering the concepts after your body has had the opportunity to lead.
In every case, repeated practice offers deeper insights if you are truly curious.
Likewise, what can be learned on any given day depends on the time you are willing to invest. However, the continuity of your practice is more important than its quantity.
My suggestion is to set aside at least 10-15 minutes for each experiment.
The first inquiry in this book - and several others - are specifically identified as foundational. These are the most essential inquiries and deserve deep study.
You are also encouraged to journal about these practices and designate your own personal library of foundational practices. Any inquiry you especially enjoy - or find especially challenging - is a good candidate for this category.
In some cases I credit particular teachers with whom I first encountered an original version of an inquiry which I may mostly preserve or expand in my own way.
Most creations are entirely original, yet nonetheless deeply indebted to somatic pioneer Moshe Feldenkrais whose approach to learning is my primary inspiration.
Above all, these inquiries invite your experimental nature. A playful attitude, willing to let go of attachment to specific outcomes, is your best ally.
For best results, be curious and have fun!
The ‘presence mantra’
Sit or stand quietly in a comfortable position, eyes open or closed.
Quieting yourself does not require you to ‘sit still’ or ‘stand still.’
Tune into your bones and their connection to solid surfaces like the ground or a chair.
Sense space, inside your body and out beyond your body.
Connect to your breathing.
Listen to the sounds all around you.
Notice what you see.
You can gently sway if that feels good. Notice how this movement produces changes in your contact with supporting surfaces below you and alters your position in space.
You always move toward some things and away from others.
To encourage continually returning to this vital practice, remember this mantra:
breath ground space sound light
Moving your attention between these different aspects of your relationship to the world will train you towards a more synaesthetic perception that enhances your adaptability to diverse environments and situations.
Notice how your breath is an exchange with the environment - the air enters and exits your body. It enters and exits the universe.
The sound of your breath is one of many sounds of the world. Perhaps your thinking also ‘makes a sound’ which interacts with the other sounds you hear.
Spend a few minutes simply observing these phenomena.
Then gently rest a couple fingers on the side of your throat to detect your heartbeat.
Feel and listen to the movement of your heart. Become aware of the rhythmic relationship between your heartbeat and your breath.
Another layer: Notice how this polyrhythm interacts with other nearby rhythms, like birdsong or traffic on the street outside your window. Feel into the directions and distances that connect you to each sound in your current soundscape.
After some time, you can lower your arm, but stay present to your heartbeat.
Keep listening to this music:
Breath ground space sound light
BE this music.
Discussion:
Each moment of life offers an overwhelming amount of sensory information.
One of your essential skills is to filter out what isn’t relevant. At the same time, there is danger in excessively narrowing your attention.
First, you can miss cues from your environment that may be vital for your safety or for skillful participation in your current activity.
Second, attention is key to connection - with yourself, the world, and other beings.
It’s possible to have a habitual attentional bias towards either ‘inside’ or ‘outside’ experience, each with its own particular consequences.
Noticing that all five of the mantra’s relationships unfold both ‘inside’ and ‘out there’ beyond your body will help you to cultivate a more balanced use of your attention.
In fact, the distinction between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ becomes increasingly irrelevant.
Tuning to your animal Nature diminishes your sense of separation from the world.
Your sense of hearing plays a principal role. Unlike your vision, which is only directed forward, you can hear in all directions.
Furthermore, your ears anchor your relationship to music, which appears as layers of rhythm, harmony and melody, and teaches your body how to move.
Dancing is a natural response to music, the animation of listening as spontaneous expression.
And life is just like music. But the ‘music of life’ isn’t just sound. It’s the experience of all of the senses dynamically dancing with each other moment by moment.
It’s worth noticing that inside of this music, your thinking also “makes a sound.”
Sometimes it can be quite ‘loud,’ even drowning out the sound of the ‘real world’ around you. Your psychic voice also has a certain tone, tempo, and rhythm that may or may not be well-matched to the larger music your body is embedded within.
Quieting thought is key to reducing attentional bias towards inner experience.
Breath, ground, space, sound and light can be explored anytime and anywhere.
It’s like learning the alphabet of life’s musicality. The more you learn to recognize these vocabularies, the more that you will gravitate towards greater presence as a habit.
While it is advantageous to practice in the quiet of your home, you will gain much deeper insights and develop further capacities if you also practice in a variety of localities, including noisy or busy atmospheres where many people are present.
You may even notice how each new body that enters a space influences the music.
*The Presence Mantra is a foundational practice*
It deserves your continued study, even as you engage with other experimental self-inquiry practices. To encourage you, it will be referenced frequently in relation to the other practices in this book.