Report 46

I notice the homework practice is what I and some others engage in, with PaB, which is stopping on a continual basis, in the midst of whatever is going on, to practice. In the case of PaB it would be to 'drop what you have to see what you are', but after a while it takes on different flavors, and the point is cultivating continuity of awareness. These days I think of it as relaxing moreso than stopping. 

During conversations, it is mostly a relaxing of my own 'self talk loop', to better relate to the 'other' ... dropping distance. Zen mentioned Tonglen in his report, and this is a practice which can fit in naturally with daily interractions, especially 'stressful' ones.

Related to last week's session and this one, I woke one day with a kind of direction "Don't save people from the outside", which I thought was funny because the last thing I want to be doing is 'saving anyone'. That's language I left behind years ago. As I've gone over it this week though, Ive gotten friendlier with the sentence as a kind of reminder not to expend energy on 'outer effects' of things or on good intentions to 'help', but to dig deeper into pracice, being aware in that place of 'no distance', and to let the outer effects care for themselves. I don't need to convince anyone of anything, and it doesn't really matter if I ever see if what I 'do' matters on a surface level... The main thing is the motivation.... inner witness.   

As for renewing commitment every day before getting up/going to sleep, this is a surprisingly powerful thing to pay attention to so far, though I think it will take a while longer before it is more part of my rhythm to pause more deeply before getting up especially.