The bus driver this morning, in an inexplicable good mood, called out, “We’ve got more room, move back!”
I’m increasingly paranoid in the open January desert. Nervous about my age and finances, not, ironically, my happiness, the usual subject, I’m furiously logging onto portals, moving money around then back again, googling what IRA and SIPC mean, and worrying about my retirement track.
It’s not spacious in my mind.
A few months ago, I stopped bringing my phone around for tasks on busy days. Walking across the office with nowhere to look, peeing with nothing to do, it’s all very uncomfortable. I wanted to gain a sense of spaciousness in my mind and feel the emptiness little by little so I wouldn’t need as much in the evenings or on the weekends.
I think I have, but it’s small progress. The swamp of anxiety and uncertainty wins again and flushes me down projection pipelines.
Sometimes, I try for big progress with meditation. I like open-eye meditation, otherwise known as blank staring. No, but really, there are strategies to it and it’s a bit lower barrier than other types of meditation. Here are some I know and like and have given made-up names:
Start with your eyes open, soft gaze…
In-Between Sounds
Listen to the loudest sounds in the room and isolate them (hold)
Next, switch to listening to the softest sounds in the room (hold)
Next, target the space in between (hold)
end
.
No time
Imagine there’s absolutely no past before this moment now (hold)
Next, imagine there’s absolutely no future past this moment now (hold)
Next, open your awareness as wide as it can be so you’re casually aware of everything but not fixed on anything specific (hold)
end
.
Objects around you
Become aware of objects in the room around you
Next, become aware of the space around those objects
Next, become aware of all the empty space in the room
Next, include the space in your periphery
Next, include all of the space behind you
Extend that space outside the room into everything around you and let the boundaries go into infinity
A similar sense of space might arise in your mind
end
.
Unlike other issues of Poem People, the materials in this issue, specifically the meditations, are not my IP. Nor am I an expert in any way fit to give counsel on medical, emotional, or mental health.