Frank's Summary

Another week with some challenges such as travel, partially a lot of work, a number of people to talk with etc. I notice that practicing wh (or other practices) is easier for me when I am relaxed and contemplative mode, if I am not too tired, stressed or fatigued and if my mind is not spinning around objects. It feels then that being centered is lost. I have the yearning of connecting with a deeper sense of beingness and perfection, but that feels hard at times when I am stressed or distracted. Looking at appearances and asking myself questions such as "What is it made of?" or "Where does it arise from?" allow my attention with some patience to be drawn back into the sense of beingness. Shifting my center of gravity from objects to their underlying beingness (how I call it for lack of a better word) feels nurturing and there is sweetness to resting in that dimension. In that beingness wh holds, i.e. it is experientially true.

I worked with Piet's suggestion to have a version of wh ride on the breath. The first time I did it, I was again in worn out state, and it felt somewhat threatening. The threat is to the sense of a stable reality. There is an anxiety and red light blinks in my mind: "Something is wrong here". Reading everybody's weekly summaries, I felt re-encouraged to try out the practice, and this time I did more gently, less conceptual and most importantly when I was already in a state of ease. This made the practice work much better for me. The practice makes sense to my mind, as it could help to remove artificial barriers between meditation and non-meditation. I plan to explore it further.