January 20, 2017 (Friday)

At some early point in each meditation session, Andy tells us to close the eyes and to feel, almost immediately, the body: points of contact, against chair or floor, feet/ soles on floor, hands / arms on legs, etc. And today it made me think: what if I could feel the mind this way? Are there people who do? I think I asked myself this because during the ensuing body scan, setting my intention to connect my life, I had an inkling of this mind-feeling. Spontaneously, it made me say (inwardly) that I want to unleash my mind. “Unleash” was the best word that came to mind, mostly because my mind somehow felt powerful – but restrained, held back, leashed. The feeling stayed with me: as though this powerful, straining-at-its-bounds (put there by me!) mind is always there (like the proverbial blue sky above whatever equally proverbial clouds are blocking it). It’s there all the same, irrespective of the hedges, ditches, and fences I’ve erected around it. Which is why I wondered, “What if I could feel it, the way I feel my body pressing down into the chair, my feet on the floor, hands on my legs?” So, to connect my life (intention #1) I need to feel my mind (intention #2). It’s a fascinating, if totally a no-brainer obvious notion, this idea that one should “feel” one’s mind the way one feels one’s body. It’s tricky, though, and on another level not obvious at all. It’s not a matter of emotions as such, although they factor into it. But emotions can also be part of the constraining architecture obscuring mind. It might be more a question of what Andy is getting at with directing us to sense the underlying mood.