One is trying to bring more of the flow of images/pictures into my conscious experience.  Words, feelings, and bare sensations are my primary conscious streams of mental activity. For you it may be more images and feelings.  So when I can invite the images to the rountable of conscious experience, this human being can experience altered states compared to the usual baseline.  This is an activity I’m exploring–we are exploring–this whole self is exploring.   And impersonal analytic thought is still gathering ‘data points’ of experience and isn’t saying much yet.

Another area is exploring the boundaries between conscious and unconscious or subconscious mental activity.   One very clear boundary is at the time of first waking up.  Literally, the reality tunnel of the five basic senses wakes up, then after some pauses, with no conscious effort, various ‘bundles of thought subjects’ arise.   So I’m setting intentions to see, hear, and feel internally what is happening in the background as those thought bundles rise up.  Again, still under exploration.

It is a part of, not apart from, but not the whole of living a great life.  At different times and during different experiences the importance of daily practice has fluctuated.  And over time the ideas, techniques, values and skills simply become integrated into daily life.  The distinction between a ‘formal sit’ and ‘daily life’ just falls away.

Sort of like when I was getting sober decades ago and learning how to live life without a drink it took effort, time, and practice.  The new habits of sober life took a while to master and then just became who I was becoming.  Same for the pragmatic practices and views described on this blog.

The ‘selfing process’ is a mental activity that represents the whole of the body, heart, and mind.  It starts when we wake up and keeps on going during the day.  It is the stream of words, pictures and feelings, all linked, repeatedly, to the pronoun “I.”  If you are mindfully watching it and switching pronouns, you see the mental processes as they are happening and at the same time experience it. For this pragmatic practitioner the ‘selfing process’ is the ‘ghost in the machine.,’   And it is how the machine (the whole body, heart, and mind) knows that it exists and relates to the world.   Very pragmatic and useful that selfing process!  Thank you Karma.  Glad this human being has one..well, actually several…when learning how to switch up the pronouns!