Report 18

Rainbow watch

While driving in my car, looking at the (apparently summer!) dark cloudy sky, suddenly i saw the beginning of a rainbow, short at first then growing to a larger part of an arc.

Then i thought of the 'me seeing a rainbow', and tried to connect this experience to the (2nd) codependent arising approach Stim described.

It soon struck me that the rainbow is a classic case for dependent existance - It doesn't exist anywhere, but in the image of the one looking at it. there is no independent solid rainbow, that i can go to and 'touch' to assure it is there. I imagine none standing where i was, and see that there is no rainbow anywhere in that case. My eyes looking at it, are creating, literally, the rainbow i am seeing now. Going further, i consentrate on that feeling, the look creating the rainbow, and starts to see that the action of seeing itself, is not seperate from the rainbow, so 'seeing a rainbow' is correct linguistically, but infact there is 'seeing-a-rainbow' action, none of them can be seperate from the other.

Then remains the hardest part - the see-er, 'me' doing/feeling/grasping this view/image. This one is much harder for me to look as codependent. There is a very distinct feeling of 'I' performing this 'seeing'. on other places, different other will see other rainbows, but when i focus on myself seeing it, and driving towards it, this I remains somehow more basic, more independent, than the seeing operation and the rainbow object.  

I look at the trees, and think that maybe their image also can't be separated from my stare looking at them. i wouldn't go far to their existance, but surely the image they create to me (or us in a way) is something that is unique to the way i look at them. A butterfly will see an image so different, that there is no sense in saying we are seeing the 'same tree'.

Walking

While performing walking meditatin exercise, (borrowed it from Stim's book, don't tell), i walk attentively, getting slower and slower in my step, until one step takes at least ten second (appriximate). I think about the 'goer','going','destination'. As i slow down more an more, i can see the notin of 'destination' starting to fade away. It is quite easy, since the paste is so slow, i am surely not going to get anywhere :)

then the 'going' remains, and me, the 'goer'. THe walking starts to dissolve into seperate phases - lifting leg, putting it down, breathing, shifting wait etc. as with the rainbow, the notin that remains study is the sense of 'me' doing all that - or at some stage watching all that in the happening. Rain starts to fall, but not so strong, so i dwell in the state of 'going nowhere' for a while, getting a little wet, but enjoying it. Did you know raindrop can be very tickling?