the contemplating teacher:
taking the long view (2)
Lee Worley
Photo: © Zsolt Zsoló Kóté
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Space awareness
Luckily there are some other useful tools for those of us who must face the pressures of the day-to-day while we slowly grow into our contemplative manifestation.
The first tool that always comes to my mind in this regard is space. I was fortunate to have trained in a technique called “space awareness” by my teacher Chögyam Trungpa. Like meditation, space awareness needs to be consistently practiced to be effective, but its results begin to affect one relatively quickly. Why? Because it is not as much an elimination of habitual patterns or a retraining process as it is a simple matter of recognition. Space has been with us all along. We wouldn’t be alive without it and yet we never notice it. Begin to notice it and your world will become more spacious. Obvious, isn’t it?
There are several things that space awareness can accomplish if you give it a chance. All of these will move you in the direction of becoming a contemplating teacher. To begin, direct your attention to visual space and practice seeing everything that your open eyes take in. Don’t discriminate. This page you are presently reading is no more important than the wall beyond it. Let what exists at the periphery of your vision be equal to the words you are looking at. Eventually it becomes possible to see everything your eyes are seeing all at the same time. You can practice this while you meditate. Let everything in front of your open eyes just be there. In the beginning you may either feel like a zombie or too open and vulnerable. We do a great deal of fending off by the way we use our eyes. However, the quality of non-discrimination that this exercise fosters has implications for non-discrimination in the classroom as well as for taking in both the details of students and the totality of the moment, including but not limited to, individual physical forms.
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