Conceptual Action exercise - ‘Full and Empty’

Guided contemplation.

Get present and focus on your experience. Breathe deeply into your center. Slow down your breath. Slow down your mind. Consider your day. Consider your encounters throughout the day.

Notice how everything you do is about yourself. Even all the stuff you do for others always relates to yourself. Your friends, family, colleagues, strangers. Everything you do always relates to you somehow. You are always there. You are always full of yourself.

Notice you are always full of yourself. Have no judgements. Just breathe deeply and slow down your mind. If you start getting into stories just slow down and just notice. Everything you do is for yourself. Notice this deeply.

Now notice the events of your day. Notice your interactions with people. Have no judgements. Just bring up the events of your day, breathe deeply in your center and slow down your mind.

Notice how people you encounter throughout your day are also so full of themselves, to greater and lesser degrees. Have no judgements. Just notice this. Notice the effects of their actions. Try to get them and their actions for themselves.

Even if another person seems to do what they do for others, their actions always relate somehow to themselves. Again, have no judgement. Don’t get into stories of narratives. Just create a thought of another person and notice this.

Notice we are always full of it. What are we full of? Don’t go into stories, don’t go into narratives. Don't try to figure it out. Just experientially get that we are all full of it. Maybe full of shit? Maybe not? literally and figuratively. Just experience that we are all just full of it.

Ok, now breathe slowly and deeply into your center. Your metaphorical cup should be full. Full to the fucking brim. Notice how you are always full to the brim. Notice how we are always full to the brim.

Don’t judge. Don’t go into stories or narratives... or do judge and get into stories and narratives. Think or don't think. I don’t care. Just breathe and notice we are all full of it. Our whole experience is full to the brim. Experience this completely.

Notice you are always full of it. We are always full of it. Our whole experience. There’s no escaping this. If you try to escape, it’s you trying to escape within the fullness of it. Whatever it is. You are still full of it. We are all still full of it.

Keep breathing into your center and breathe out your whole experience. Don’t analyse, don’t think. Just notice the fullness of your whole experience. Your entire experience, which includes other people and the thought of others.

Now walk around. Focus on objects. Keep noticing everything is about you. Your experience of everything is all about you and all around you, almost like you are trapped in the center. Notice everything has a meaning or charge. Good or bad, like or dislike, even ever so slightly. A little or a lot.

Don’t think or do think. Keep breathing and experiencing physical objects around you. Keep noticing that you are always full of it. You know everything and you know how to relate to everything.

Keep breathing and feel your feet. Feel the pressure of your feet against the ground. Experience the objective world. Don’t start inventing stories, explanations, cosmologies, histories or narratives… or do so and just notice you are full of it. Maybe full of shit.

Now, take a deep breath and inhale all of it. All of it. All the shit that you know. All the shit you don’t know. Take a deep breath and take it all in. All the good shit. All the bad shit. Maybe take a few deep breaths to fully get this. Right now, thoughts about your day. Thoughts about your life. Thoughts about your future. Take in all of it. All at once.

Ah, yes, we are all full of it. Full to the brim.

Now, empty your mind. Empty your cup. Let go of all the stories, cosmologies, explanations and narratives. Let it all go. Let go of your histories, let go of your past. Let go of your justifications. Let go of your excuses. Let go of your buts. Let go of all of it.

Exhale and completely empty your mind. Empty your cup. Just do it. Don’t think about it. Just do it. Now experience what Is. Experience you, a human, a simple living breathing creature with no past, no future, with nowhere to go and nothing to do.

Keep breathing and imagine you’re a rabbit or a simple living breathing creature. Grounded. Just the physical stuff. Simple, without all the unnecessary crap.

Keep breathing and keep letting go. BE your body. Just do it. Keep experiencing what is. Be the rabbit. Be the tree. Stay there.

Now notice how your experience changes. Now get how your mind changes. Likely full again. Now experience what doesn’t change.

Again, now empty your mind, empty your thoughts, empty your answers, empty your awareness, empty all that crap. Just a bunch of stuff. Empty that shit too.

Now Contemplate ‘Who am I’? and go on about your day and enjoy. Maybe do this all again tomorrow? Maybe not? Maybe do your own voice recording to listen to or sum such. Just getting Now and keep contemplating. As Peter would say 'there's much more consciousness to be had'.

2 comments