Opening to the sensory experience of life, the feeling tone, self-stories that arise. I have found that by being willing to allow life to touch me, open to what is arising in each context in a gentle non-judgmental way, I find myself growing emotionally and psychologically not by hunting down trauma (wanting for a better word), not by seeking a particular experience but by allowing the contact with the present context arise opening to my self-story that arises with those conditions. By opening to the self-story that arises in a gentle non-judgmental way, I allow the story to run. Opening to this story gently gathers the resources to be present with it. As I open I am not identifying with the story which allows the story to unfold in its own way without editing if editing arises I open to that. To me, the sense of editing our self-story is the 5 hindrances. These are the ways we defend ourselves or engage with the conditions arising wanting them to be different.
As this process of opening gathers its resources depending on the conditions arising the ability to release the self-story arises bringing ease and the potential for insight into this body/mind system. Revealing how we have attached to the idea of being this body and the emotions and thoughts that arise with it. By opening to this process, we begin to let the body/mind story run, as that is what it does, it is a sensory stimulating experience. As Dhamma practitioners our job is not to numb it out, it seems more of an allowing this story to be. When we let it be, it begins to reveal many treasures which were held out of awareness due to holding on to certain ideas/beliefs. The process of maturing is continuous, with each arising condition awareness arises with it, each awareness has to go through the process of opening/maturing with the conditions arising, when the process of awareness matures it leads to cessation, but not always. The experience of cessation gives faith to continue this process of practice. Maturation of awareness is gradual but can be experienced as maturing at different rates dependent on the conditions arising. Sometimes we are opening to a process which feels painful, uncomfortable. As we stay opening to this process we realize that this is where we are at, our awareness is at the stage of finding this experience painful, other times we may drift on with a process till awareness reaches equanimity. All we can do is be willing to open to the process we cannot force release. The process of opening to what is arising releases the ambition to achieve which allows a more thorough maturation with less by-passing of experience.
When the process of opening begins to maintain itself I find there is a sense of stabilizing in what I call the primordial nervous system our deep fight or flight systems. These are the primary felt experiences, it can feel like a raw direct experience of Dukkha. We may find that while opening to these experiences we become aware of our deeper motives in life and the self-stories we have to create in reaction to this Dukkha. As we steady in this and insight knowledge arises we may experience deep states of calm and joy. I feel much of practice is opening to our stories that arise in relationship to our lives, opening and releasing the stories of self. When conditions are right we drop the selfing process of this sensory experience. This creates a shift in perception which gives permission for every aspect of our human experience to rise into awareness, we are learning to question ideas and self-believes. In this process of letting go we are emptying everything, and due to the process of opening we are not blind to what we are letting go of, so letting go humbles us as it reveals our perfections and imperfections. Leading to the realization that who we are right now is perfect as due to the law of conditioned arising this is what is happening right now.
