The Flow of Discovery

I stand.  Straighten my body.  I feel the spot at the top of my head that tingles, that feels different.  I imagine the string we so often talk about, gently lifting from it.  My neck grows longer, stretches.  I feel the spaces between my spine extend and expand.  Tiny muscles let go, and my neck aligns, this same process moving down my back.  Sometimes, I hear the click-click-click of vertebrae popping into place.  It’s taken me a long time to get to the point where just by intent, I can make things move like this.

I roll my shoulders back, letting my hands fall and press lightly to my side.  My hips naturally pull forward a little, to dangle at the end of my spine.  My feet are together, big toes touching lightly.  I feel a different force, the opposite of the one pulling at my head, pushing down into the ground, projecting slightly into the earth.

And I take a breath, and open up my senses to feel my entire body.

Wow.  It isn’t pleasant.  I’m suddenly deluged with all the stress, tension, and chaotic energy I’ve picked up since my last discovery.  Tension knots my muscles.  I’m vibrating at a thousand pulses a minute, unable to slow down.  It’s a bit nauseating, like I’ve been dipped in sewage.  This moment of awareness, it can be overwhelming

And I breathe.  And take another breath.  And just listen.  Try to get some idea of where I’m going to focus my next actions of discovery.  I feel a little sick.

I let my head fall forward.  Begin to move in slow circles.  Now images start.  Bits and pieces of my day.  Flashes of things that happened, and the intense emotions that are associated with them.  It’s  easy to become lost in these reactions.  It’s easy to find myself disappearing for a few moments, and then “waking up” and realizing I’ve lost five seconds here, thirty seconds there.

But I’m aware of these traps, I’ve been here before.  So I gently remind myself to breathe, and to feel.  To slow down, and again focus my attention inwards.  When the images arise, I let them.  When the feelings come, I let them.  And I try not to react, to simply let them wash past, and keep my focus.

And then I start to feel it.  The first bits of tension starting to evaporate, boiling off my body like steam rising off hot pavement in a summer rain.  I keep at it.

I begin to roll my shoulders.  One of the toughest parts.  The place on my body where I tend to hold onto tension.  It’s tempting to try to “muscle” through this, and make it feel like a “massage,” but instead, I go the other way.  I try to just let go, to make it as gentle, and as relaxed as possible.  To let the tension leave, not force it away.

I’m caught again, briefly, in a reaction  - a daydream – a moment of anger boiling up.  I remind myself, there’s a mind body connection.  These knots in my body come from someplace.  They’re physical manifestations of emotional tension and anxiety.  When I release this tension, it often brings back the feelings and events that put the tension there in the first place.

What I’m feeling is natural.  And that helps me to again refocus, to let it pass.  To move back towards the breathing, and relaxing.  I realize that sense of “tension dissipating”, of it rising like steam has resumed.  I didn’t even know it had stopped, but now I’m present again, and can feel it.

Now I’m making bigger circles with arms, hands pushing out towards the walls, then falling like leaves from a tree, descending towards the ground, sweeping past my legs, and then rising up on the other side as if carried up on a warm breeze.  I’m scanning my body, slowing when I find tension, giving myself a little more time to relax and let it go.

Now, for the first time, that sense of nausea fades away.  The tension leaves my body.  Time starts to slow.  My breathing slows.  The buzzing feeling, the sense of a thousand pulses a minute starts to slow.  Maybe I’m at a hundred pulses now.  And getting slower all the time.

Breathe in.  Breathe out.  Breathe in.  Breathe out.

I start to feel centered.  My body sinks deeper into the postures.  Tension flows out very quickly now.  What was difficult at first becomes easier and easier.  Now I’m looking for smaller pockets of tension.  The big ones are all gone, and I have to search harder for the small holdouts.  When I find them, I slow down, and simply feel them away.

The sound of my breath – each breath in has a beginning, middle, and end.  It starts slowly, then there’s the smooth rushing, the feeling of air moving past my nostrils, down my throat, and tickling across my lungs until it presses down against my diaphragm.  And then the silence as the lungs pause, finding a moment of balance, and then they reverse their course, the breath whispering up and out.

Now I’m doing the warrior postures.  Again, it’s tempting to muscle through this section, but I try to hold the posture using the least amount of energy possible.  Only recently have I begun to find the ability to release my legs, and get that sense of tension boiling away.  But I work at it still.

I sink into Iron broom, and hit a block.  I’m only halfway down, so I sit, breathing and just sensing the block and then- without any warning, it just gives way, and now I’m descending, dropping until I’m almost touching the ground.  I didn’t have to force it.  It was the opposite of force.  It was surrender that got me so low.

I hang in bat posture for a bit, then walk my feet in, and slowly roll up to upright position.  My head rises high, dangling from a string, hands resting at my sides, toes touching, feet pressing into the ground, I take a deep breath and feel my body again – feel the difference between now and a few minutes earlier.

Where once I felt like I was dipped in sewage, overwhelmed, almost ill, now I feel quiet, dark, peaceful. Like I’m pleasantly empty inside, like my lungs expand just a little more, like I can breathe.  I open my eyes.  The world feel clear, simple, uncomplicated.

I’ve taken my first step.  I’m clear, and ready for class.  Now the real work begins.   And I smile.

I’ve just described my personal experience with discovery.  I’m sure quite a bit of it is repetitive.  The number of times I have to remind myself to FEEL and to BREATHE is a lot, especially at first.  After I’ve broken through some of the tension and residual reactions to the day, it gets easier.   A couple of tips for beginners:

1) Focus on breathing, and feeling.  When you find tension, just feel it, and try to let go of it.  One way to facilitate this is to simply focus your attention on the pocket of tension, and then simultaneously focus your intent on the breathing process.  Tie the two together.  Every exhale is a natural relaxation.  Let that relaxation move like a wave through your body, and as it rolls over and past the tension you’re paying attention to, it will carry some of it away.  Repeat until enough tension is gone.

2) It’s natural to have ideas, images, and even whole scenes of events in your life come up and replay in your mind’s eye.  It’s also natural to feel ill, or strong feelings like anger or sadness when you practice.  The key is not to get trapped in these reactions. When we stop and take time out for life, unresolved feelings have a way of making themselves known to us.  When you notice that you’ve been carried away by them, just pull back slightly, pay attention to it, try not to react or get caught up in it, and again, simultaneously, focus on your breath.  With each exhale, you may find some of the strength of the reaction is carried away.  If it doesn’t naturally subside in a few moments, try to gently set it aside, and go back into your muscles, and continue your work.

3) Embrace the discomfort.  It’s natural not to feel good at first.  But by working your way through it, you’ll find clarity and peace at the other end.  The Hua Hu Ching says (in chapter 29) “Don't think you can attain total awareness and whole enlightenment without proper discipline and practice. This is egomania. Appropriate rituals channel your emotions and life energy toward the light. Without the discipline to practice them, you will tumble constantly backward into darkness. Here is the great secret: Just as high awareness of the subtle truth is gained through virtuous conduct and sustaining disciplines, so also is it maintained through these things. Highly evolved beings know and respect the truth of this.”  The deeper message of this is that Enlightenment is not a goal, it’s a process.  At any time you stop doing your practice, you will fall away from your clarity.