300 Days

300 days to go in my year to live; 65 days already behind me. I've learned over the years that there are specific practices that can be done to prepare one for death - departing the body we inhabit while "here." In his book "A Year to Live" Stephen Levine wrote: "Close attention to sensation is a means of being present for, and through, the letting go of the body. It is an encouragement of life to enter the body moment by moment, sensation by sensation that ultimately can enable it to find its way back out just as consciously." (p. 103-104). Part of my preparation during this year to live is to begin the subtle separation of my energy body from my physical one. And so, I practice:

I took a walk this morning with my dog. It was sunny but cold with a wind blowing that made my ears hurt. I witnessed my mind wanting to identify and label everything I was experiencing through my sensory body. It took strong conscious effort to drop fully into the sensory experience and out of the mental categorizing and such. So much was available on the sensory level: cold air, cold wind, warm and bright sun, the sound of leaves and birds, the pounding and sounds of my feet on the ground, my dogs collar tinkling as she moved, the odor of her pee when I passed it, the feel of cold air in my nostrils, the sound of my breath, the discomfort on my cold ears, the colors and patterns of everything around me....

I noticed layers of mental activity as I went along, such as: body functions and balance (urge to pee; on my Moontime - am I leaking? watch that rock; legs are sore; knee hurts from yesterday's bruise...); "file-cabinet activity" (identifying, categorizing, labeling, and then sharing everything); chatting in a play-by-play kind of way; playing background music, and on and on.... layer upon layer. Some spiritual masters call this our "Monkey Mind."

I used a specific visualization I've learned to get the background music to stay quiet, and then worked my way forward through the layers of mental chatter and such until I was focused on my breath and the immediate sensory data around me. It took focused attention to keep the mental language/data file drawers closed and all my awareness on the sensory experiences WITHOUT labels.

Doing this practice this morning of quieting the gymnastics of the mind and dropping more fully into the sensory realm reminded me of the fact that all that is truly before me is energy. Whatever else it becomes - even if just a color or texture - is a fabrication of my mind. I really tried this morning to simply experience - without ANY labels. It was harder than I thought it might be. For the brief time I succeeded, the world took on an entirely different flavor: "formless" is the word that comes to mind, if there must be one :



©2010 Cecilia L. Zúñiga. A Year To Live. All Rights Reserved. Reprints, copies or reproductions of any kind must be accompanied by copyright credit line.