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With this excercize I suffered, not terribly, but I want to acknowledge that I ran up against 'self' quite a bit. :)

I suffered restless 'waiting', especially 'not meditating' (whch I honestly didn't think I approach as something to do* but yes it is), and not being up and about the decluttering process I'd been putting my hands to as a way of working out/stretching insight into circumstances (integration).

Staying with that I could see that the most acute forms of suffering in my circumstances are felt as 'waiting', and that I 'hold on' to a kind of charge generally... a kind of reserve of spiritual energy. Distributing this energy is something I've been paying attention to, and when i setttled into the restlessness I experienced a shedding 'super' from natural... getting comfortable with the relief of a kind of 'normal'... nothing special, yet soft/light. I had to shed some fear of abandonment to do so.

So, the attitude I began with was one of looking at circumstances/situations unevenly, in a choppy way... perhaps dwelling on the 'shinier' things and thereby being somewhat disociated. At the end, there was more evenness.

At homework session, Mitsu shared some thoughts on *not meditating* and also of not carrying around our 'tools'' (insights perhaps we are constantly storing up?)... So there comes a shift of living as though we don't have to be 'fortified' for everything 'just in case'... which Gaya astutely observed is "clutter!"  

A funny note to share:

On the way to school my son said to me that I'm the only one he knows, who doesn't have any problems. When I asked him what he meant, he said I don't have problems of my own, just other people's. :)        
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Days later and I am aware of the restlessness still, maybe because I wasn't before. I am also aware of a *continual* falling away... a spontaneous process of shedding and distribution ocurring as a matter of course.

I am also still giving away, organizing, etc. Saturday I had a conversation with my grandfather which was exposing in some ways, but it was easy... felt like the same kind of thing.

Stim: direct awareness appreciates the fullness of things and the emptiness of things, and is also immediately expressed in our actions
-Without direct awareness and its expression, we acquire but don't see and don't "empty" /We leave no room to live / We possess but don't appreciate

So... maybe I begin to have a more "first-hand" understanding of dedication of "merit", and of cultivating aliveness as a continually unfolding natural process which is impossible outside of immediacy/direct awareness... understanding how spontaneous action is trustable... that everything supposedly needed is 'there' already, in a sense.

Began today, to add some time after 'meditaton' and other practices, to just not go anywhere and breathe... I laughed at the end of the time realizing that what I've been feeling with the 'blankness' I describe which seems perhaps diff. from the way Gaya uses the word (?), is like someone has handed me an inconceiveable amount of money or some treasure, and I am just dumbfounded until I know who/where it is 'supposed' to go. Along with that though, is still a 'stuck' which can be difficult to separate out.

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Have gone back to this excercize in quite a few ways over the last week. Shedding continues... :)