Report 18

Food

 

I used to think I was quite good at paying attention, but I'm awful.

Smelling my food before each bite does help to stay in the moment – I now pay full attention about half the time when I'm eating. I am starting to notice how I live in the future (the next bite, when I'm done with this, in half an hour as well as tomorrow, next month etc). And it is starting to look absurd.

Homework

 

I found this one difficult, just understanding what exactly it was I had to pay attention to. With other explorations, I knew what I was supposed to do, it just was difficult to actually do it. Here I did not really know what I was supposed to do. I talked about it with others as well, and that helped a little bit.

Going

 

I have concentrated on the "going" aspect (not so much "goer" or "gone to").

I noticed that when I go, I am focused on the future and therefore I am not fully here and now, and I am going somewhere pretty much all of the time. For instance, focusing on the next bite instead of the one I am eating right now, or not fully being with eating breakfast because I want to check my e-mail.

Time

This focusing on right now has (slightly) changed my perception of time. Instead of seeing now as a point, a cramped space between a closed past and a wide open future, I am starting to see how spacious now is. Now is actually all there is. I knew that already, but I have seen it a bit more now, I have remembered.

I am stuck in being elsewhere, but at the same time it is impossible, because I am always here.