In the process of doing the CHALLENGE, N noticed that he rushed things. He had gone on a meditation weekend, and realised there was lot of stress in his life, and just doing meditation slowed the whole system down.
In terms of consciously slowing things down, he found he could perceive part of the mind wanting to push ahead and do things faster, and it made him stop all that and observe the machine a lot more, in terms of being able to see where his mind was trying to interfere with his body movements as well.
One of the things he noticed was, in playing the guitar, there were some benefits of slowing down. In terms of doing scales, if he slowed things down and then speeded them up, the result was better, because he was more accurate, and played with more tonality.
When T did the challenge, she was usually moving along at a pace to get somewhere, and slowing that down highlighted what she thought of as a different driver, and the driver before was the head, and the driver when slowing down was the "challenge" driver, a different driver but nevertheless a driver. Slowing down turns off the autopilot, and suddenly the plan that she was heading for would dissolve, the time supposed to be at the planned place with the people she was supposed to meet. The surroundings would suddenly become themselves, and the shapes of the buildings, the colours, become more intense. Her experience of body would change with the change of momentum, and seemed to be more of her senses returning into it and awareness returning of it. Her feet, legs, torso, arms, the senses of sight. It was like a slow motion experience. She would be going along, remember the challenge, and then slow down. Everything slowed. It was like experiencing herself as part of something bigger. She found that when she was intent on doing a practical task, it was difficult to maintain slowness, and she was often in that mode, where she was trying to get things done, to the cost of experiencing being there.
L had found this an active awareness rather than a passive mindless experience, and he had noticed that he tried to engineer situations which caused him to be late, and that made him walk faster, and that was maybe from trying to do too much. He had done the challenge a number of times. Sometimes it would be walking slowly, and that was quite interesting. If he walked slowly, then people who were walking behind tended to overtake him, and he could hear some interesting conversations. He heard a woman's voice explaining how she had been trying to give some tadpoles a high protein diet, but there had been a difficulty in finding worms. He noticed, also walking, an elderly man walking much slower than everybody else, and that made L more aware and he noticed blossom falling from the trees, and that was very nice. He experienced the steam slowly rising from his coffee. Generally it was an enhancement to experience. He had reflected on how nice it would be to experience things like a tree does, which means very slowly. Sometimes the wind would make it move slowly, but a tree might experience each wing beat of an insect going slow.
The other contributions were not about doing the monthly challenge. The responses to contributions, on this occasion, were likewise unrelated, as was discussion following paragraphs read from Beelzebub's Tales.
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Once a day, do some activity at half speed, with good, positive feeling.
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Old Guitarist, by Picasso Source: Painting Planet |
When T did the challenge, she was usually moving along at a pace to get somewhere, and slowing that down highlighted what she thought of as a different driver, and the driver before was the head, and the driver when slowing down was the "challenge" driver, a different driver but nevertheless a driver. Slowing down turns off the autopilot, and suddenly the plan that she was heading for would dissolve, the time supposed to be at the planned place with the people she was supposed to meet. The surroundings would suddenly become themselves, and the shapes of the buildings, the colours, become more intense. Her experience of body would change with the change of momentum, and seemed to be more of her senses returning into it and awareness returning of it. Her feet, legs, torso, arms, the senses of sight. It was like a slow motion experience. She would be going along, remember the challenge, and then slow down. Everything slowed. It was like experiencing herself as part of something bigger. She found that when she was intent on doing a practical task, it was difficult to maintain slowness, and she was often in that mode, where she was trying to get things done, to the cost of experiencing being there.
L had found this an active awareness rather than a passive mindless experience, and he had noticed that he tried to engineer situations which caused him to be late, and that made him walk faster, and that was maybe from trying to do too much. He had done the challenge a number of times. Sometimes it would be walking slowly, and that was quite interesting. If he walked slowly, then people who were walking behind tended to overtake him, and he could hear some interesting conversations. He heard a woman's voice explaining how she had been trying to give some tadpoles a high protein diet, but there had been a difficulty in finding worms. He noticed, also walking, an elderly man walking much slower than everybody else, and that made L more aware and he noticed blossom falling from the trees, and that was very nice. He experienced the steam slowly rising from his coffee. Generally it was an enhancement to experience. He had reflected on how nice it would be to experience things like a tree does, which means very slowly. Sometimes the wind would make it move slowly, but a tree might experience each wing beat of an insect going slow.
The other contributions were not about doing the monthly challenge. The responses to contributions, on this occasion, were likewise unrelated, as was discussion following paragraphs read from Beelzebub's Tales.
