Meditation

[Guest guest]

 Softly gaze at a blank wall, or more preferably, look out a window at

a distant vista.  With the mind's eye (the eye of consciousness behind

your body's purely physical eyes) define your field of visual

consciousness as a circle.  Imagine the top of your field of

consciousness as the 12 o'clock position on a clock and the bottom of

your field of consciousness as the 6 o'clock position.  With your

mind's eye, not your physical eyes, slowly sweep your attention

clockwise from the top 12 o'clock position down to the 6 o'clock

position, then on to the 9 o'clock position and then back up to the 12

o'clock position.  Repeat this process in the counterclockwise

direction.  Mentally strain to observe the very outer edges of your

visual field of consciousness where the light of consciousness turns

into the darkness of empty space.  Go on repeating this process until

you feel you have had enough.

 

     This is an powerful awareness exercise, not an eye exam, and that

is why it is recommended only for students with a number of years of

experience in meditation.  After practicing this method for some time

one can begin to transform the method into one of sudden expansion of

awareness.  You can gain the ability to perceive the complete 360

degrees of the outer edges of your consciousness in one jump.  This

feels like stepping back, literally out of your own mind, and looking

back into your mind from a close and friendly distance.  You become

identified with the void and space around the flame of consciousness

and this makes the flame grow even brighter.  This truly esoteric

method is difficult to fully explain and there are aspects of it that

you will have to learn on your own through practice.

 

     One discovers from this technique that our visual field of

consciousness is roughly football shaped, with greater width than

height.  This is because our brains evolved out of a need to look for

food and danger more on the horizontal axis rather than on the

vertically axis.  To survive you need to be aware of what is on your

right and left more than what is directly below your feet or above your

head.  This powerful awareness method has a deprogramming effect that

allows one to appreciate the play of existence as an ever changing

drama.  You feel as if you are in it but also out of it and beyond it. 

 

 

Copied in part from C. Calder

Meditation Handbook