Among the exercises that I sometimes deliver, there is this, that derives from a phrase heard in the small Emerald Tablet - this nice bookstore in the Latin Quarter, sadly missing for nearly a decade.
One of the old regulars of the place I once asked the following question: he pretends to pinch the air between his thumb and forefinger, and then asked me: "When I do that I want or I'm taking?"
At the time I stayed like a hen before a knife. But I often thought back to this little scene afterwards.
Today I often engage in reverse order: I do not look at an object - he looks at me. I do not breathe the air - it is he who breathes. So on.
Also I strive to represent me myself not as a full body, but as an empty space bounded by the full outside.
This may take the form of a relatively long meditation or not to extend beyond one minute.
The main advantage of the method is that it gives a loud " halt" the flow of my thoughts - to the extent that I can not ask me about in front of the object " looking at me (to stay with this example), and at the same time it does not assert either as a new "topic ", as apart from this ability to look, I thought neither assigned nor own wills. In short it is not a kind of ventriloquism by which I doterais an object with a capacity that I give up: While I leave, I say look, hold, feel, is not my business but the nature of that toward which I move too radically alien to mine so I can even imagine the use that it would make if it was capable of: who can imagine the kind of look you would send a satellite dish or a chimney?
One of the old regulars of the place I once asked the following question: he pretends to pinch the air between his thumb and forefinger, and then asked me: "When I do that I want or I'm taking?"
At the time I stayed like a hen before a knife. But I often thought back to this little scene afterwards.
Today I often engage in reverse order: I do not look at an object - he looks at me. I do not breathe the air - it is he who breathes. So on.
Also I strive to represent me myself not as a full body, but as an empty space bounded by the full outside.
This may take the form of a relatively long meditation or not to extend beyond one minute.
The main advantage of the method is that it gives a loud " halt" the flow of my thoughts - to the extent that I can not ask me about in front of the object " looking at me (to stay with this example), and at the same time it does not assert either as a new "topic ", as apart from this ability to look, I thought neither assigned nor own wills. In short it is not a kind of ventriloquism by which I doterais an object with a capacity that I give up: While I leave, I say look, hold, feel, is not my business but the nature of that toward which I move too radically alien to mine so I can even imagine the use that it would make if it was capable of: who can imagine the kind of look you would send a satellite dish or a chimney?
It's a safe bet that it was not what was meant by the old man of the library, but who cares after all. (...)
Illustration of Hokusai. Wikimaus text. Original title: Inside / Outside .
