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Hey bums! So a long time ago my mind started expanding and I noticed it was my presence that expanded the most. A sphere at first which was probably no bigger than my bedroom eventually expanded from expansive force to be as large as a city block. Also I believe the presence was a perfect dome at this point, with maybe half of the presence underground? I could practically feel everything within it if I directed my attention towards it. It seems directly connected to yang eyesight. I could make connections through the eyes with people at 120 yards sometimes further but usually only at energetic peaks. I am looking to close my presence and am looking for techniques that do such a thing. I have no idea how large it is but when I drive in to the city it feels as though the towers 2 miles away are within it. If anyone is wondering it is a noble presence and very bright. I just think it’s time to close up and isolate my self and my body within it. Hope to hear some suggestions

Work is utterly nuts this last month... a near fantasy world of incredible noises, construction machinery, indoor cranes hoisting thousand pound lighting instruments overhead, forklifts, dust everywhere. Five departments simultaneously trying to prep a high end product for the pickiest of clients. In midst of this cacophony. Routinely, i unfold into silent emptiness in the midst of my task, for the last several days, amidst this losing of self in the task a thought repeatedly arises... what is least obvious? While i've spent countless evenings contemplating what is most obvious, only recently has this question been arising, unbidden, unsought... but repeatedly. what is least obvious?

I just posted this at my blog: https://blisswriter.wordpress.com/2015/01/07/mini-lesson-practicing-presence-and-pooping/ In this mini lesson I will give you a very simple practice that anyone, and I mean anyone, can do. It does not matter how busy you are, at least once a day you will have to go to the bathroom, you will have to sit down and go number 2, as my parents call it. The next time you have to go to the bathroom, instead of taking a magazine or the newspaper with you, instead of sitting there thinking about what you will do or where you will go next, just sit there and practice awareness of your physical body as it expels waste. I have started doing this myself recently. Normally I want to think about anything else, or daydream. It is resistance to being present minded, to a practice of awareness and presence. Now I see this for what it is, and without criticizing myself, condemning myself, judging myself, feeling ashamed or guilty, I just gently, but persistently, bring my attention back to my physical body and what's going on during this process. I usually have the window open if I want to practice breathing, but if the smells of the process become overwhelming, I can just bring my awareness into my body. Everything my physical body feels as it pushes this waste out. There are so many sensations, focusing on them can keep my mind occupied for a long time, and in the meantime I am being fully present and living in the present moment. An additional benefit is that there is no strain. I am not rushing off somewhere else. I am fully with my body's process of expelling waste, fully aware and present. So I will never again get a hemorrhoid because I was pushing and straining out of a desire to be somewhere else. Instead I am right there, allowing my body to do its thing, in its own natural time, according to its own natural processes, and I am just being aware of this, just observing it. I know exactly when my body is finished because I am so tuned in, and for 5-20 minutes I have not only meditated, but practiced awareness. I am following the instructions of Ram Dass to, "Be Here Now." So the next time you need to go to the bathroom, leave all the distractions behind. Go in there, focus completely on what you body is doing, and just observe. Just be with the process. Just be aware of it, and, if conditions allow, practice your breathing. Take a moment to breathe deeply in and out. This is a way for those who say they have no time for mediation, no time to practice awareness, to do so, at least once a day, and maybe several times a day. It is a beneficial, healthy practice, both physically and spiritually. It is also a process of loving and accepting yourself as you are, as your physical form, instead of feeling ashamed of your body, causing you to rush through its functions.

So this realization has been revisited on me again and again in my life. Mainly because I am nearly, inconceivably wealthy in the vast amount of incredible people, animals and plants that have continually surrounded me throughout my life in every phase. It's become more intense and frequent of late, last night being a whopper. So I share it. Last night it was driven home, poignantly, almost overwhelmingly in one of those simple, shining, 'ordinary' moments just 'hanging out at home'. A moment so relaxed and simple, so authentic, it roils with potential and resonates in my inner life like some massive gong being struck and my awareness takes on a pounding presence of clarity and acute, almost overwhelming gratitude... I'm sitting in my usual spot, cat splayed out on my lap, as my wife and son engage in deep conversation... and then awareness settles, everything becomes almost still, even with the motion of the fish swimming and the gestures going and the music playing, everything seems to get very still as I expand outward... and this concept settles on my pond like a leaf striking a gong that shakes the world. "the most valuable thing that anyone has ever shared with me, or that I could ever offer... is complete, authentic presence." It's profoundly humbling and empowering simultaneously. A silent, immense, gratitude repeatedly pounding out in waves of love that in turn crash back into my core, as if the very air were a drum being hammered by the presence of authenticity.

Hi, Well, I have to write again.. I have been doing breath meditations regularily, for 2 or 3 hours per day, every day for months now. The breath meditations progressed until, a few days ago during one meditation, I dissolved the body and found that there was a sphere of awareness, much the same 'feeling' as the substance that emerges during my satori moments, which inhabits the body. It is like the inner layer of the body is a field of clear aware light that is aware, not in a point or center, but as a whole. The whole field is aware, each of its own things, and as one thing (if that makes sense). It reminds me of Nisargadatta's "focus on the I AM". On the day following that meditation, the aware field did not come back.. I was kind of sad. Over the weekend, I listened to Alan Wallace's Dzogchen broadcast, #29 over again. I have been listening and performing the meditations in his 30 podcast Dzogchen retreat for the second time. In #29, he reveals the higher practice of shifting one's attention without object, directly above the head, then to the right, then, to the left and finally he says to visualize that your centre of attention in the head takes an imaginary elevator downwards to the heart and remains there! I was flabergasted that this is actually one of the highest Dzogchen practices, as taught by Padmasambhava in his book called "Natural Libertaion". I haven't verified that yet, but the whole idea that one finally ends up in the heart was amazing to me. The heart is magical. It really is. Today, during my breaks at work, I spent some time doing sambhavi, and really sucking in from the forehead, simulating sleep. I had to reassure myself that I hadn't lost the kundalini effects this practice produce. Yup.. still there.. Within a few seconds, I saw the layers of consciousness pass by, lights, visions etc as one would while falling asleep, and the root started acting up again with ecstatic bliss.. Same old, same old.. When I came home from work, I noticed that I had an intuition that a book had arrived. I was looking forward to receiving the book about the Third Eye from Del Pe, which is being delivered from India so I thought that that was that book. When I got to the mail box, there was a very small parcel.. Hmmm.. The Del Pe book was 475 pages so it couldn't be that one. When I got inside the house and cut the parcel open, it revealed that the book was "The Mirror" by Namkhai Norbu! I had ordered it a while back. Now, I really like Namkhai Norbu. When I first learned of him he visited me astrally and gave me some kind of transmission. The effect from that experience was that this golden aware light in head, close to the "I" grew over the span of a couple days. Lack of sleep and the feeling of pure awareness expanding were the characteristics.. N Norbu has 'visited' a couple times since then. Every now and then I will see him, smiling at me (well not quite smiling, more like 'wising' at me) in the astral. He is quite adept to be visiting me so much. I am grateful. Anyway, It was just before my 'home-from-work' meditation and I decided to read just a bit of "The Mirror". It was a very small book and it looked interesting. The gist of the book is that one must remain in presence and awareness, not just during meditation, but 24 hours a day. One must make an effort, once a meditator learns how to access the 'presence and awareness' to remain in there during all the activities of the day: walking, eating, working.. etc.. It seemed like very good advice to me. To remain in presence and awareness. I had read for about 40 minutes and finished the main part of the book. I was a little late for my pre-supper meditation.. No big deal. I sat in my meditation area and set my timer for 45 minutes instead of 1 hour because I was a little off schedule. I wondered what it meant to sit in 'presence and awareness'. So, I closed my eyes and looked straight ahead. Hands on thighs, open and palms up. Lower back resting on the wall. No kechari or anything fancy. I first focused on 'presence' which immediately brought my attention downwards towards the energetic sphere of the body. Then I focused on 'awareness' and tried to be aware of everything at the same time, mostly with the eyes. Vivid awareness. I tried to hold the combination of presence (which morphed into a feeling of being centered in the heart) and awareness. As instructed in the book, if thoughts were to come up, you simply ignore them or dissolve them away. Thoughts came up, and I noticed that they dissolved away very quickly. I maintained my focus of the combination of presence and awareness. Images came up, the pulsing of the etheric body matching the breath, visions, thoughts etc and I maintained my focus through the rough stuff. It was almost easy. I just kept turning my attention downwards towards the body and cranked up the attention, interest, awareness of all senses in order to catch every detail, every sound, every thump and bump that living in a shared residence produces. Gradually, after most of the winds settled down, I discovered that I was no longer a point of consciousness or center of attention in the head. I had become a sort of bubble or round sphere of awareness, with the center in the general area of where the heart should have been. Not a point, but a sphere of awareness.. Then, the magic started happening. I would see a scene, but it was no longer a scene like looking through the third eye. The scene was on the outside of bubble, surrounding the whole bubble. It was like I had travelled to and had become immersed in another land, one with green leafy vegetation and strange looking plants. Again, I focused on presence and awareness because I thought it was just a more elaborate vision, and again I was immersed in another landscape. It was like I was in a bubble and was travelling to other planes, or dimensions or planets. It was amazing! I noticed that while this was going on, my mind was relaying thoughts and at first I ignored them and dissolved them.. They would disappear into a fine mist. Then, I realized that I could actually think and still be in the bubble and be immersed in a landscape, all at the same time. But, for fear of losing the experience, I maintained a focus on the presence and the awareness as the primary interest. I experienced about 10 or 12 immersions into places I had never seen before.. Next I also noticed that I could see the physical world even though my eyes were closed, the room where I was meditating in, the whole house, like it was transparent, as a sort of background to the landscapes I was seeing. I was seeing everything at once, like layers of visible transparency.. Then I noticed that I felt like I could just float off in the bubble, and float around the room if I wanted to. I didn't do it because I thought that that was enough. Then my mind started getting afraid and wishing the whole experience was over because it was an experience that it was not used to, had never experienced before and wanted time to analyze and digest this new phenomenon. I kept at it, hoping to hear the 45 minute bells from my "Insight Timer". I noticed that there was no body sensation, that I was a very light sphere of aware luminescence. It felt superb. I was a ball of presence and awareness! I wondered if I could somehow transport myself, body included, to other locations in the world. The thought of the merkaba came to mind. I wondered if this was all the magic of the heart, where the real power lies. Then the timer bells went off. YAY!!! Post meditative digestion by the conceptual mind. One of my favorites activities.. I've been so happy since that meditation. I'm bouncing around as I walk, with a big smile on my face. I feel like I've discovered a key, a hidden secret. The key is presence, just like Eckhart Tolle talks about, and awareness. Not pointed awareness like a concentrative laser, but relaxed mind awareness with peripheral attention, not focusing on any point except downwards towards the body for the presence part. And, being aware of 360 degrees around with high attention and interest at the same time. Presence and awareness.. Space and Light. Hmmm.. Presence.. perhaps it is the dharmakaya. Or primordial consciousness? Awareness? The luminescence of awareness? The Sambhogakaya? The Heart? WOW! Magical. TI