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Michael Irwin - How I Latihan

RECOVERY OF LIFE WITHIN. From Michael Irwin, September 30, 2007. Time 21:40

UPDATE: Since writing this article, my latihan hit a wall for the second time in my life. While I kept my ability to stay easily in a blank state, the latihan went dead. My wife suggested that I should observe my body during latihan. In the same way that I was also not paying attention to my thoughts, emotions and imagination I realised that I had also not been paying attention to my body. I followed her advice and was overjoyed at the recovery of life within the exercise. The lesson for me was that in both cases in which my latihan had gone dead, I had been consciously ignoring or rejecting something that was present. In the first case, I had pushed away mental confusion because I defined it as alien to the latihan and in the second I had dismissed the body's movements as not being worth watching. Permitting the confusion to be allowed in my latihan allowed the "Cloud" to manifest. Recognizing the body's presence has brought back a participatory joy. In neither case was the rest of my latihan invalidated.

From Mike Higgins, October 5, 2007. Time 22:27

Michael, Your latest comments prompted me to reread your article and apparently I misinterpreted it previously. I now think that my attitude in latihan is similar to the "void" state you described. It's a focused state of attention in which I observe my thoughts, feelings and actions. It's just that I never thought of it as something I did, i.e., manufactured the void state, but rather as something I allowed to occur. But of course allowing it to occur IS an act of will, just not the egoistic will that gets caught up in thinking and dreaming.

Re: your recent insight about observing your body. This correlates with my experience. Either accepting (immersing myself in) or rejecting experience draws me out of the "void" state of attention. Thank you - Mike

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