Karma Builder: Today's Karmic Workout – Study A Simple Object
Today's Exercise: Study A Simple Object
[Preparatory Note: they say that most people "cannot see the forest for the trees". The fact of the matter is that they don't see the leaves for the tree either. It is amazing how little detail we actually absorb as we move through our world. For this exercise we are going to take a simple natural object such as a blade of grass, a leaf from a tree, a flower or a stone and study it in detail. This exercise will take about 5 minutes and you may want to procure your natural object ahead of time. You want to be sure to use a natural object because natural objects have greater complexity than something man-made like a ball bearing.]
Turn off your cellphone.
Find a quiet place where you will not be disturbed and can think.
Establish a meditative breathing pattern of long exhales and equally long inhales.
Spend at least 3 minutes studying the details of your simple natural object. Notice its color, structure and texture. Feel it in your hands. Smell it. Notice its shape and the elements of its form including any substructures.
Think about how much detail there is in this single object and how many of these simple objects there are in the world. Notice that every one of these simple natural objects are just as complicated and detailed as all the others and yet none of them are exactly alike.
Spend at least 2 minutes considering how much of the detail of the world you actually miss by not paying attention to it.
Training Note:
One of the side effects of the post-Industrial Age is that we have become obtuse. We are so overwhelmed by stimulation, that we hardly notice anything. This was not the case for our ancestors. Life and death could hang in the balance of a bent blade of grass or a footprint in the dirt. While awareness can keep us safe from harm, it also increases the quality of our life experience. Martial artists train to habitually notice the hands of approaching people and can spot weapons before they are a threat, but they also notice the grace of an elderly woman's hands or the scent of a rose as they pass by. Awareness gives life intense dimension and detail deeply enriches the experience of living. We see this in many manifestations: the vintner who can taste the subtle complexity of wine, the chef who tunes into nuanced flavors, the carpenter who can see variations as small as a 1/64th of inch with the naked eye. Awareness is the the road to mastery. While you are jamming out on your iPod, you may be missing the particles of your existence. You can actually practice awareness. Start tuning into details by practicing the art of noticing on simple natural objects.
Karmic Benefits:
Wake Up, You Are Missing It: when we begin to become aware of the details around us, we simultaneously become aware of how unaware we really are. In the ancient times before mass media, noticing details could get you killed which gave everyone a great incentive to pay attention. As the world has become a safer place and is designed and redesigned to accommodate human thoughtlessness, we have very little incentive to pay attention to anything other than our internal dialogue or mind cartoons. We actually only observer a tiny fraction of our world. This makes us horribly out of touch and might explain why we are trashing the planet. The devil is surely in the details, but so is the magnificence of existence.
Step Out Of Vague Concepts And Embrace Intricacy: the intricacy of existence can be astonishing and beautiful. Of course, we do not notice this until we tune in. When we walk by a garden, we vaguely notice little wads of color and rarely take time to notice that flowers are actually intricate living organisms. This means that our conscious is filled with vague forms that are barely distinguished from one another and, in some instances, renders our entire world into one big blur. This is the by-product of mental laziness and it diminishes the quality of our experience of life. But it does not have to be that way.
The Richness Of The Human Experience Lies In The Details: when we step outside the blur we have the opportunity to truly embrace the miraculous quality of existence. We come to bear witness to complex interrelationships that make up even the simplest things. We also begin to notice that the structure of our world is not random, but rather, has an organization to it. Understanding this organization gives us the potential to harmonize with everything around us. It is only through awareness that we can truly know that we are alive.
It May Be Fiction, But It Is One Heck Of A Karmic Workout.
Read The Lotus Blossom, D. M. Kenyon's fictional account of a teenage girl who turns off her cellphone and enters the very real, but mystical world of Budo warriors. Humorous, irreverent and heart-wrenching, The Lotus Blossom is an unforgettable tale of a Midwestern teenage girl's transformation into a budo warrior in the midst of the turmoil of the Information Age. Available in all digital formats, paperback and soon to be released in hardcover.
Available at : Amazon.com Smashwords.com Barnes & Noble
Share Your Experience:
Leave a comment when you have completed the exercise.
Enter your email address to subscribe to TLB's Daily Karmic Workout:
Delivered by FeedBurner
