Methods that work…
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It hasn’t rained in a while, you’re walking down a trail and notice some robins drinking in a puddle up ahead …
It’s early fall, you’re walking along a dirt road and a squirrel carrying a pine cone starts to cross the road, stops as soon as it sees you and pauses …
What do you do?
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Nudging
Is: steadfast and gentle persistence, an ancient life skill almost universally useful, and may be as close as you get to inner stillness while still trying to do something.
Dictionary.com: “1. to touch or push gently; 2. to prod lightly; urge into action”
Everyday use … Problem solving by baby steps … never quite giving up, or by giving up and then starting where you left off, and then continuing until the problem is solved.
Applied to Tracking … “I can’t.” … “Well, I could try this.” … “Hmm, that worked and I’m a little closer.” … “Now what if I …?”
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Meditation
“The only way to get anywhere else is to start where you are. Meditation is just being there.”
Sitting is one way … Walking another
Meditation applied to tracking: Meditation is about inner stillness … still minds notice more, a lot more.
One Method Practiced:
Walk … In a safe calm-ish place
Distractions … Just helpers
Avoid dangers … They are another part of the practice
Notice and give way to wildlife … More practice
Visual Focus … Wide-Angle Vision*
Mental focus … The empty spot between your eyes
Breathing focus … helps, sometimes, unless you fasten onto it
Continue
Herd the mind … It’s the most useful
Continue
Respect your own pace … ‘Cause you will “ought to should want to”
One step is progress … “Not too bad, not too bad at all”
Not trying … Oh yeah, that is the point
Enough …Is what you can
Maybe nudge … a bit
It’s ok not to … When?
What they say is true, there really is nowhere to go, nothing to do…no progress to make.
It seems to go against reason and logic, but what if it’s really that nothing is missing from or wrong with the present, the world? After all, as Leonard Cohen says about cracks, “That’s how the light gets in.”
Oh, and by the way, you can’t see stillness. It builds in the background, behind the glaring phosphorescent consciousness. No! Wait!, you can see it! Notice the changes. I know, that’s vague, but you will.
A different way to communicate …
A successful experiment …
Mental focus between the eyes, in wide-angle vision.
“Shhhhh, shhhh, shhhh …”
The pine squirrels heard and did stop barking.
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Humans … Something pretty interesting happens in the first few seconds after you first notice someone (or even just before?)
How do others react if you still your inner process and just gently notice them as if you were seeing the deepest good they exist in?
Chickadees … Knew my inner state before I did!
Geese … Hear you when you are present … And they’re not the only ones!
*More about “Wide-Angle Vision”: princeton.edu/~oa/nature/naturobs.shtml
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Offer yourself to life …
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To Contact the Author:
Stacking Sand 