Spirituality and Experience: Practices
White Noise
Something about the simplicity and rhythm of jogging occasionally puts me in a mood where I feel an integral part of one whole that is happening or going on. This morning, that mood completely captivated me. Everything in my awareness became one world: the movements of my limbs, my breathing, the feel of the cool air moving against me, the surrounding trees, and each twig and leaf passing underneath on the ground at my feet. Even the sounds of traffic rushing by in the road beyond as people drove off to work were included in this experience and in that world of the moment. The traffic sounds blended into a white background sound like seething surf or the steady whirring of insects at night. It had the same mysterious effect, like overhearing whispers, loud and urgently moving, yet without being able to make out the words – like a kind of humming sound that all life makes but which we usually ignore.
Feedback?
For many years jogging was an activity that helped keep me sane, centered, and moving forward. But jogging doesn’t have this effect on everyone. Different things seem to work for different people.
Are there practices that you’ve incorporated into your way of life that have worked well for you and that you’d like to share?
Something about the simplicity and rhythm of jogging occasionally puts me in a mood where I feel an integral part of one whole that is happening or going on. This morning, that mood completely captivated me. Everything in my awareness became one world: the movements of my limbs, my breathing, the feel of the cool air moving against me, the surrounding trees, and each twig and leaf passing underneath on the ground at my feet. Even the sounds of traffic rushing by in the road beyond as people drove off to work were included in this experience and in that world of the moment. The traffic sounds blended into a white background sound like seething surf or the steady whirring of insects at night. It had the same mysterious effect, like overhearing whispers, loud and urgently moving, yet without being able to make out the words – like a kind of humming sound that all life makes but which we usually ignore.
Feedback?
For many years jogging was an activity that helped keep me sane, centered, and moving forward. But jogging doesn’t have this effect on everyone. Different things seem to work for different people.
Are there practices that you’ve incorporated into your way of life that have worked well for you and that you’d like to share?
Posted by Paul at 11:34 AM Permalink
23 Comments:
There is something about shelling peas for hours or deskinning tomatoes that connects me to nature and God. And each time I open a jar of spaghetti sauce in the depth of winter, all the memories of the previous summer come flooding back.
But, more specifically I've recently taken up a little yoga work. It helps that my wife teaches yoga, but I don't like going to studios or anything like that. I just do a short specific set of postures coupled with some breath exercises. The "five Tibetans" they're called. Amazing, absolutely amazing to do....
At this time and place I found my practices to be more about energy and clearing blockages. Less presence and awareness stuff and more development of energy.
I really can't write about my music practices and their connection as this would turn into a 100,000 word tomb... but they help...
peace
SOULPEACE: That makes sense to me. Can't help but think of my recent post on the Trappist monastery. They make those preserves, bake their own bread... Simple manual labor in peaceful surroundings seems to be something that's helpful but missing from a lot of lives today.
KEVIN: "Simply being present" reminds me of mindfulness techniques in Buddhism. And it sounds like you have several things going on together - that really makes for a wonderful way of life.
PAULINE: From an earlier post of yours sounds like this got its start for you in childhood. It also resembles "mantras."
I've never read anything about this, but from something similar in my past - plus I think it just makes sense logically - I'll bet that techniques people use to foster peace of mind, calm, and even "altered states of consciousness," had their origins in spontaneous experiences and innovations.
I also meditate in a more formal in the morning.
I can relate to Soulpeace's comment about working with food. I feel very much a part of the Earth when I work with food.
I have this ability to switch off from this world. Completely.
it makes me feel good...i usually do it alone...kicking the ball hard against the wall....
you can heal by thinking inside....and concentrating on that part of the body.....if your mind looks like getting distracted try chanting OM
this is my first visit and I already like your blog. Insightful thoughts.
I enjoyed playing a round of golf early in the morning, just to enjoy the morning sun, the breeze and the greenery.
On the beach. I feel like I've I've finally come home.
Man, I am so marrying the beach.
GOOGIE BABA: On that first point, the world could use more like you... My family anyway, lol.
SUSIEQ: And porches are great for that, or chairs outdoors like these big wooden sort of reclining ones my grandmother used to have at the beach.
GAUTAMI: That's been true for me too. There's some change over time with these things.
VISHESH: I never thought about that like this because at your age I'd never had a discussion like this. But I used to do the same kind of thing only with a rubber ball against the side of our barn. Couldn't count the total number of hours I must have spent doing that!
PINK GINGER: Thanks for stopping by. I've never played golf but I've had that sort of reaction to baseball I bet for similar reasons - both played in relatively natural settings, and the pace is less frenetic than with most sports.
DAMSEL IN DISTRESS: I'm with you there. The beach, especially off season, without the crowds, probably more reliably and instantaneously changes my frame of mind than anything. I think it's the bigness, the openness of sea and sky and horizon. And the wind moving over it all.
N2: Hadn't thought of the interpersonal possibilities here. That's really interesting.
A dozen years ago I found wonderful peace from kayaking. Didn't matter what the water was like, just that it was under me. a week after my dad's funeral I decided to go to the pool for roll practice. Just as I arrived I became wound up in grief and didn't know if I could handle it. But the minute I scooted off the edge of the pool and the boat hit water, all of the tension began to ooze from my body. The gentle floating is like being in a cradle. I felt relaxed and safe.
btw.can you read my latest post?
VISHESH: Yeah, and what's worse is I bet I'd still be doing it once in a while if I still had a barn and a ball (and could walk). I guess sort of age-inappropriate for a fifty year old but actually I know I would!
Just left a comment...
But I think the thing I most rely on for sanity is my solitude. I love communicating with people but it becomes quite painful for me to be around them physically all of the time. I used to think this was a problem and spent a great deal of time trying to solve it. But it turns out to not really be a bad thing. I just require less emotional noise than most.
BAD ALICE: Yeah, it's great to find something to read that's so engrossing. There's a good book I could recommend, lol...
I have to say, when I was young I had this streak of stubborness for the sake of stubborness. Sometimes it was a bad thing. Two things where it was great: meditation and jogging. I jogged for, no kidding, about two years even though I hated it just because I didn't want to be completely sedentary and it was easy and convenient. I meditated for several months getting NOTHING out of it as far as I could tell.
Not that everyone would like everything if they just kept at it, but just to show that it can happen.
CRYSTAL: Exactly. In Buddhism "contemplation in action" is "mindfulness." "Contemplative prayer" is "meditation." And William James, in discussing "mysticism" (I don't personally like that word - it makes it sound so... spooky or odd or not part of a widely known aspect of our experience...) Anyway, before I interupted me, WJ refers to that sort of response to nature as "extrovertive" mystical experience.
So whether you have your eyes closed in meditation or open and feeling "one with nature" he sees these as different versions of the same basic type of "monistic and optimistic" experience.
Walt Whitman's poetry, at least from what I remember of Leaves of Grass, is one steady current of extrovertive mystical experience.
ROSIE: Except for the swimming - I always had a tendency to sink like a stone if I stopped flailing my arms and legs around - we seem to have a lot in common from what I've read of your commentary. Being alone for me usually meant something like "quality time with the universe" and not loneliness.
there are many things which live with us for ever..the are things which will be with us always....thats the passion we have for it :)
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