Just One Look Forum Archives

Hey John,

It was amazing to get a chance to talk to you at the way end of your open house, I got all messed up on the time and I thank you for including me! I've been thinking about this notion of attention. We laughed about the comment you made to me when we met that "whatever you put your gaze upon will disappear but you" but I think we both really knew how clear that was so I'll try to be as brief as I can with other associations to this.

Okay so the title of this says "Putting your gaze on your gaze?" My first question is, can you find yourself by just focusing on that beam of attention itself? I find that may get me to a more grounded place where my attention is just a bit less outward and resting or lying in wait. Other tactics: focusing on your belly or center. I recall you also said to me when we met that Ramana used to say "focus on the right sided spiritual heart." Your point with that one may have been that the sincerity or determination is all that matters and is a lot more important than whatever you are actually doing. Two other tactics that may relate: Douglas Harding talked about pointing back to your own head/face and I see that when I attempt this, I cannot quite describe what I see. It feels slightly death-like, a little murky but also like a kind of dazzling dark, hm. This may be a more concrete experiment where I could actually be gazing back at my gaze.

Last experiment I've tried has a lot to do with feeling some sort of emotion like fear or sexuality, going into the neurosis or fantasy of this feelings, then allowing the energy to manifest. Then going into the body, finding where these feelings are happening, then experiencing their size and shape, then delabeling them as even being fear or sex and instead they are just energy. This then helps me get in tune with a whole room or space where it is hard for thoughts to even arise for a moment without being delabled as energy.

I've listened to you long enough to know that some of this may seem a little too complicated for the simple act of looking but I thought I'd put these things out there anyway. They are experimental and the sincerity behind them is what I think is most crucial for me to look at right now. Let me know if you have any thoughts on all this. I just got out of a long term relationship and the world feels pretty wild again! I was at a literature program in Maine about a year ago and we read a lot of Emerson so I would love to talk about him at some point with you. Great to hear your voice today!

Josh