This is the environmental construction where I am setting myself up for the drop. What I call “Settling” is a pregame process that optimizes everything before diving into the committed surrender of the deep sit. Most humans don’t just snap into performance without warm-ups and favorable conditions, hence this setup.
The hacks of Settling seek to build momentum and point my being before shooting into total immersion. My thought is that before letting-go, aim for the target…but before aim, stabilize. The former step of establishing life’s Situation has trained, aligned and optimized the physiology and the subconscious psychology up to this point to cash-in on the said efforts, but it is the Settling that stages and tunes this harmony for the drop.
Honor The Temple
Before approaching the actual, physical, sacred spot where I will Select my intent and Sit – I enter with sober, raised spirits and look at it with devotion, respect and joy. I brush-off the wandering mind behind me. I get all my thinking, worrying, tracking, planning, projecting or reviewing behind me. I get agitation behind me. I enjoyably get ready for calm, alert adventure for upon the place where I will Settle. I think of things I love then note to myself that I can return later to enjoy these thoughts and I enter the effective Faraday cage of anti-agitation. I clear the mind and proceed to this spot dedicated solely for performance. No baggage allowed in the temple.
The Rock
My spot is for stillness, extreme stillness. It is Zen-inspired in order to gain the advantages of this traditions posture that exploit super-stillness. It is free of distraction from allegorical art, dynamic lines, movement or excessive light that distract. Firm like a rock that resonates with all that is still, I settle.
Build Thy Temple
I use a zafu seat pillow and a zabuton under it, but I also use beanbags to support my legs in just the right way to achieve solid, alert posture of full-lotus (I’m lucky I can do this). I want my body locked in to the firmness of the room, thus building and ultimately the rock of the earth as she orbits the solar system that is on trajectory across the universe all rendered upon the same matrix.
I have a focal point of a black cup where I cannot see the bottom of it. The line work of the cup’s edge circles my gaze back to the middle and additionally blocks out worldly thoughts as the Faraday cage does. The abyss inside of it draws the eyes and attention deeper into the journey symbolically beyond the matter we think its made of. Being empty like the inside calmness of a stormy Zen circle warding off the incoming, in there no story hinted upon besides that there is nothing to tell. It works like an anchor or buttress to the temple of me. I will experiment with using a mirror along with, or instead of, my black cup. This will track stillness and allow me to opportunity to project appreciation for my being.
Like a predator I focus on the centered emptiness keenly, but like prey my senses are activated broadly on the firm space around me ensuring that I am locked in ultimate stillness. Like a mountain is to the earth under it, there is no separation my body and the spot. My physical body feels locked to the material world which is also still, and the habit to maintain this improves. Therefore, the remaining task to manage one thing: The remaining activity inside the still mind.
Executive Management
As mentioned, I create stable physical conditions that calm and balance your mind so the brain itself isn’t distracted from the mission. This involves being mindful of the hardware sensors of my avatar so unintended inputs don’t trigger operating system (mental) resources that deviate the the mission. Besides avoiding unwanted inputs, the tactic is to ping the sensors that favor focus, clarity, mindfulness and de-agitation in a way that doesn’t instigate sleepiness which is not the desired state. That is, I am not merely depriving the senses, I seek to be replacing or adding inputs with charges more mission-driven. Our CPU is a general computer that reacts to pulses going into it via the senses, so as we strive to overcome the barrage of incoming signals we manage the setting upstream to block the barrage. It’s stupid not to.
- Sight:
- Color: Adhere to colors that calm the mind and add focus. Save the processing resources for your mind’s eye. Think about Feng-shui’s relationship with green or how the Zen Buddhists go black. Consider color psychology as a whole and how it effects the subconscious.
- Point: The Zen Buddhists favor eyes open for maintaining a primal alertness state, but aim firm attention to a single point. I believe this assists with holding stillness too.
- Line: Take advantage of how the eyes follow lines, perhaps to keep focus to a single point
- Shape: Avoid dynamic angles that the subconscious can interpret as motion. Avoid shapes that carry meaning, stories, to prompt the mind to venture off.
- Plane: We must be mindful how points, lines and shapes can make our minds projects a new dimension that can distract or carry with it a story.
- Texture: AKA, patterns that destabilize focus, firmness and stillness subtly agitate.
- Gestalt: Avoid design that leaves room for human projection to complete the picture. We are not here to render more stories. We are trying to do the opposite.
- Sound:
- Eliminating distractions is ideal, and sure you think you can train your mind to ignore them, but for regular folks like us noise-cancelling headphones help. The game is to remove agitators and control the senses that plug into the mind.
- Binaural beats block out unwanted distractions, but balance both sides of the mind. Many traditions believe that crossing limbs or alternating nostril intake when breathing balance left/right bias, this may apply in hearing. The grey matter doesn’t decipher what sense is delivering the signal, so we stack the deck.
- Smell:
- Choice essential oils are known to calm the mind and foster focus to a degree, which is what I’m after. Terpenes we detect may activate parts of the mind useful to the mission as well.
- Certain incenses or candles calm the mind and add focus, but these create movement in your setting with smoke, light and shadows so place them where they don’t distract.
- It’s probably a good idea to have a proper air filter that remove unwanted particles that could effect clear breathing
- Feel:
- Comfort to avoid distraction at first. When one strengthens the practice, discomfort can be seen as just another thought to use as a rung to pull past, deeper into the journey
- A the hack of the idea of an anti-agitation Faraday cage and the focal cup, a covering over the entire body like a child’s security blanket may deep inside make us feel secure from any nuisance. It symbolically makes us feel our temple is built. It also regulates temperature as it removes the idea of our egotistical human form and more into a stable triangle shape to reinforce the idea of firmness.
- Taste:
- I am unsure how this applies, but I do think about how Mayan’s leveraged cocoa and am trying to understand how this can be a benefit and not a distraction.
I feel that today we can be at an advantage over the original mediators of the past who had to go into caves. This is because we have access to more information and better tools to manage the signals of going into the mind. It’s dumb not to take advantage; smarter and harder, not just harder. I lookout for arrogant laziness.
Take The Temple Facility Online
Not beginning my official meditation yet so more of a warm up, I’ll play with my breath just to put attention on it. I’ll fuss with breath exercises like prana, block breathing, long holds and so on. I apply mind exercises like superbrain yoga and binaural beats or other tricks that calm and balance out the activity in there. A quick headstand will refresh the brain. This nods to yogis asanas, which I have to figure out one day.
When I have all the bricks and landscaping in place and aligned, I turn on the lights by elevating the emotion to a space of compassion, joy, gratitude and love. I leverage my dog (spirit animal) who’s very presence can take me to that pleasant headspace quickly. Having my EEG readings in this vibe is how I must immerse into this star gate.
With spirits high I start with trying to wrap my consciousness around the universe > to the world > to the immediate area that I occupy (with the keenness a predictor or prey)> to body (and scan it by addressing every sensation) > to clearing thought > to clearing emotion – trusting the last echo of gratitude/joy/love/compassion resonates with me automatically. You’re watching myself observe each step, so checking in to Observer at each level. I know whatever is left of I will be going deeper than emotion…and the momentum of Situation and Setttling will carry this chi ball in motion. Trust in that Situating and Setting hacks to be of subconscious help as I go deeper, the commit: The final Selection the course.
