These Spontaneous Reflections offer a light hearted exploration into the forest of and maize of meanings relating to our Existential edges around what it means to be Human with a curiosity for life and its Mystery.  What is your experience of this 'edge'?  Do you have a sense of this 'Mystery'?  What resources and creative responses might help in this Human enigma?

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Human Dilemmas, The Mystery, Insight Curiosities and the Fresh Edge

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The immediacy of life, the word that comes to me is ‘Availability’ a quality of a natural kind of equipoise that’s in a very soft receiving 360 mode.  A question from a friend is ‘Is the sequential awareness of the body and its parts as a vipassana practice useful?’ I say, every invitation into awareness and experience, every practice you undertake is useful! Its all really valuable to explore and experience in as many ways as possible with as many techniques as possible.  The invitation here is to play, to explore, to hold lightly.  I am back to the image of the beach, the sand under the feet, the sound of the waves of the birds and waves, the smell of Ozone, all this rich experience is inviting correspondence, is inviting resonance.  It’s the same with the inner world, it is a universe in itself.  At first glance given our education, given the way we have compartmentalised our experience into labels into feelings, into states like depression or anxiety, or happiness, that cartesian 'I think therefore I am' mind has really triumphed in many ways in getting us to believe we are a fixed identity with a foundation for being rational with an ability to be deductive and is touted as really the only knowledge we need. That kind of dualistic thinking mind will impose itself upon us through our conditioning and lead us believe we are nothing more. Meditation then, you could say, is the invitation to go beyond that paradigm, where reason and information and the intellect is hitherto to be known as the king, the sovereign owner of all we are and who we are and should do and be. It has led I believe, into the impoverished ‘having and getting’ paradigm, and living a life that is very disconnected in many cases.

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"Certainly, Focusing and the Dharma are not separate in this world. They are like the ocean and the horizon, and the great sky above—not separate, breathing itself, living itself, reveling in the majesty of things."
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"The fullness of itself rests in the fullness of itself. In this way, there is no polarity, but neither would one call it non-duality, so no duality and no non-duality."

"Presence rests in Presence. So, I guess my language for the Great Liberation, you could say, is Presence: Pre-Sence, that which comes before sense, that Mystery."

"Focusing is not about focusing. When something becomes about something, Buddhism becomes about Buddhism, or Nonviolent Communication becomes about NVC, it’s as if we go to a revolving door and we keep revolving around inside it."

"The function of a revolving door is to act as a portal into the very space or different space that you are wanting to get to."

"Hopefully what is happening is I am entering my Humanity more deeply. It’s a natural expression of my Humanity, Focusing, NVC, Mindfulness, Buddhism, they are not about themselves, they are pointing beyond themselves in a way."

"All true liberation teachings, according to her, always point to direct experience. If they are pointing to ‘Talking about’ Enlightenment, the great freedom etc, then they are not the true teaching, they are merely a dichotomy promoting and reinforcing itself."

"She mentions this term ‘Being Perception’—becoming perception, entering the realm of perception, as if we drop into the realm of perception rather than talking about it, in this way becoming awareness itself."

"The felt sense is the heart of Gene Gendlin’s Focusing, not feeling, but the felt sense, which is more than a feeling, it’s the inclusive whole to an experience that is alive."

"When there is a whole perception of itself, it is an invitation into full sensory awareness from its own terms as it drops into itself, so to speak, there is neither a duality nor a non-duality, and it just rests in itself."

"As this body here is listening to these sounds, so to speak, it can also notice the earth, the body can sense the whole shape of itself even as these sounds manifest and the spaciousness from the skin’s perspective, as it were, radiating out beyond these four walls up into the blue or dark night sky with a trillion shimmering diamonds."

"It’s the pregnant empathic pause from the whole sense of itself, and as this does so, and as the words and labels and interpretations, as it were, are just offered to space in the totality of things, they no longer have dominion over creating a split."

"The whole of this that owns itself, that, as it were, is hearing back from itself, or even as it were, is pausing in the hearing, the availability of the hearing back from itself, the whole of itself, the whole of itself hears back from the whole of itself."

"The map is not the territory, the finger pointing to the moon is the finger pointing to the moon, this is invariably an invitation for the moon and the light of the moon to inhabit itself. It just bathes itself in its own light."

"Focusing has been a portal for me personally into the mystery of the whole of this, playing itself out. Focusing, which of course, is not about focusing!"

Focusing Insight Duality Non-duality & the Wisdom of The Felt Sense

So I was asking you—how do you know when you're moving into a healing mode? And how do you know when you're not?
What's happening inside of you? What's going on in there?
How do you know?
Do you know? 
Because sometimes I say to myself, when there's an edge, when it's a bit challenging: Where's the healing edge in all of this? Is it in the whole thing? All of it? Because I'm not quite sure where it is. So I just ask: Where's the healing edge in all of this?
And I wait, you know.
Sometimes, it comes back and gives me something—maybe a certain shape in the body.
Sometimes, it doesn’t. But it's like—oh, it's like that.
It’s like that in there.
That’s the healing edge. Oh, okay. And then I can say hello to that, right?
So it's an open curiosity rather than an interrogative, pointed question. See what I’m saying?
For me, the question is: Where does the felt sense begin? And where does it end?
And I'm asking you with curiosity—where does the felt sense begin, and where does it end?
Just drop into that. Ask your whole body—what does that mean to it?
Does it begin in the heart area? The tummy? The throat? The face?
And where does it end? Around the shape of the heart? In the torso?
Does it begin in the sternum? Or is it more intense there?
Wherever it might be—does it radiate outward?
Does it end where the feet meet the ground?
Where the body meets the chair, or the bed?
Does it end at the skin, with the sensation of clothing?
Or does it extend to the shape of the room, or even beyond?
Where is it alive?
And if there’s something going on—say, a bird chirping or sunlight on your face—is that part of the felt sense? Or not?
What do you mean by the felt sense?
This is really important when it comes to healing.
Because—what’s the point of it?
I mean, maybe it’s heresy to ask—why do we have a felt sense?
I mean, it’s so mechanistic. But if you did ask, it’d be interesting to see what answer comes back—if anything comes back.
And if it did, it wouldn’t be a definitive answer.
I don’t think it would be. It would probably be quite complex.
Or maybe the answer would come through a gesture, or a sound, a symbol or metaphor
So—is the felt sense static? Or dynamic?
Is it in one place? Or many places?
Can you sense it in the whole experience? Or just in a part of it?
All these curiosities—along with many others—are questions.
And they all relate to the meaning of healing.
Because—well, what is healing?
And how does something know how to offer freshness from the old?
How does it know how to do that—especially with something that’s been stuck for 10 or 20 years?
And then, suddenly—there’s a surprise when you feel that melting into something genuinely different.
There’s a freshness appearing.
Where does that appear in a felt sense?
So—those curiosities.
Yeah. I’m wondering how that lands with you—without coming so much from your head.

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Tsunami Surfing, Healing, Liberation and the Thrill of the Felt Sense Reflection

Identity and the Mystery of Language
I want to come back to this word: identity.
It seems to me to be the crux of so many issues in the world — and in our own worlds, too.
It’s not just the world — it's the bounding off, the compartmentalization, the fixing.
Healthy on a certain level, yes. But in Focusing, there’s an invitation:
Who am I?
What am I?
Am I a man? A woman? Neither, or both?
Am I defined by the group, by another individual, by something in me?
Would a rose be just as sweet if it were called something else?
How does the label define the identity, and how does the identity define the label?
Language and experience — it’s a very curious mystery.
"Terrorist" or "freedom fighter" — what is this?
There are no true "nounings" — there are some, but predominantly, experience is verbing.
A sense of this-isness rather than "I am," "you are," "we are going to do."
Fixed identity — the "I Am" — creates a rigid duality. Then the problems start:
My nation, your nation. My goods, your goods. What's yours is negotiable; what's mine is mine.

At the End of the Map What then

Identity 'I Am' 'Something in Me' Who are you? Existential Focusing Reflection

Sitting with the Felt Sense
The felt sense comes alive when we sit alongside something and be with it just as it is. This is perhaps the most challenging thing a human can do. On one hand, you don’t want to be with it. On the other, how do you be with it? And what is it, anyway? Many things come up around that. Yet when one entertains it, I believe it can be incredibly inspiring. Something in you will catch it and go, “Right. Okay.” It’s like one’s whole universe potentially shifts. When one is entertained by the felt sense, it's like Lyra, Philip Pullman's character with the subtle knife. She cuts through the air and enters another reality. I think that’s exactly it. The Edge of the Map
There’s a deep sigh of recognition about what’s heard here. It’s continually reminding itself of that, because it’s not a habit. It can’t be. That’s the beauty. It’s on the borderline of habit and non-habit. It’s at the edge of the map. You come to the edge of the map, and then what? It’s freeform. It’s like finding a whole new map. But the map can be different every time. A whole new place. Multi-dimensional. And it can only be a map in retrospect. You can’t have the map to begin with—it’s not there. Map is linear. This is more multi-dimensional. The map runs out, and you look back and go, “Oh, now I have a new map.” You can’t look forward with that map. It’s a new kind of way of being.

Metaphor, Creativity, and the Limit of Language
It’s very nourishing just to chat about it. Something in me gets it. It’s like that. It can only ever be a “like that” from this perspective. In a way, it’s another map—a metaphor or symbol. Like a pair of wings, like a surfboard. I talk about surfing. But maybe you have your own metaphor that fits better. This is where true creativity happens. It’s the place of the artist, the creative to create. And if someone is creating from a map, they’re not truly creating.

Shifting Paradigms
It’s a different paradigm. It’s liberating. I was talking to a friend. I used the phrase "going south." We’re a bit far north—let’s go south. It’s tough. Then they talked about being below the waterline—what’s happening there? We recognize that from different traditions. In a sense, we’re coming to the same point. And then the whole conversation calmed. And it was like—that’s it.

All We Have Is Relationship
Relationship. That’s it. We’re not having a relationship—we are relationship. We are interaction. We’re not having an interaction. The relational field is always alive. When you stop thinking about people as fixable objects—relationship emerges. What brought me into this was wanting a better relationship with my wife. Then I realized I needed a better relationship with what’s going on in here. It turns out all we have is relationship. When you get there—it’s all relationship.

Felt Sense as Portal to Living
The felt sense is a portal into the “thisness” of direct living. You could say direct intuitive living, though intuition can be misunderstood. Korzybski, the Polish semanticist, said “the map is not the territory.” We need maps. But we don’t need to be fooled by them. The left brain is a map. People are fooled because they believe them. They believe dichotomous ways of seeing the world as absolutely true—when they are just maps. Language is a map. A belief is a map. But ultimately, it’s not true.

Perspective and the Limits of Knowing
There’s always another view. My teacher spoke of this: look at the Plough, your favorite constellation. It’s beautiful. But if you called someone on Mars and said, “The Plough’s out, can you see it?” they’d say, “What are you talking about?” From their view, it doesn’t exist. If you go toward it—after 30 billion light years—you’d be inside it, and it wouldn’t look constellated. What we take as real is relative. It’s only real from the perspective of the seer.

End of the Map and Felt Sensing Beyond  - Reflection

A lively discussion including contributions from Manvir Hansra and Raffi Campbell. 

The felt sense is a bit like a precious pearl in the ocean, and the narrative is a bit like—what could it be? It’s like a big trawler’s fishing net, you know, that’s really thrown out far and wide, pulling up all kinds of debris. But the real felt sense, that’s—the narrative is the trawler and the net. The felt sense is the pearl. And she sits quietly there. It’s like that. It’s a metaphor, right? But you get what I mean by the trawler.

It's gonna feel very real. Yes. We've got all this stuff in the net. Oh, what have we got? Oh, we got an old dustbin. Oh, we caught a dolphin. Need to put that back, right? And—yeah—maybe I'm doing a disservice to the narrative. But maybe it has a place to do a bit of a disservice to it, that’s trying to run the show, is trying to steal from the ocean right in this kind of way. Maybe the ocean itself is sensing in its fullness.
The Call of the Heart and the North Star
• Focusing offers a vital path to authenticity — following “the North Star of your heart.”
• It invites openness where we’d typically close down, setting us apart with empathic presence and humility.
• Both focusing and meditation rest on the Mystery — not mechanical methods, but a living relationship with inner freedom.

Mindfulness: Dharma vs. Method
• Mindfulness is not meditation; it is Dharma — a liberating relationship with reality.
• Breath counting and body scans reduce mindfulness to mechanical practice, mistaking means for ends.
• The true heart of mindfulness points to dignity and inner freedom, not control.

The Pitfall of the Fixed Self
• Much mainstream mindfulness implies a fixed self that must control experience.
• Terms like “body scan” reduce us to machinery; “bring it back” creates an inner dualism.
• This model implies failure if thoughts stray, reinforcing judgment and tension.

The Organic Way: Focusing as Meditation
• Focusing is emergent, inclusive, and organic.
• No “bringing back” — just allowing what’s already here to unfold.
• The body senses itself. Stories are welcomed. There is no central controller.

Presence Instead of Meditation
• Presence carries fewer preconceptions than “meditation.”
• It can arise anywhere — at a bus stop or in bed.
• It’s about letting the body notice, not doing something to it.

Cosmic Context and Imaginal Sensing
• The body can sense the stars — not through sight, but through imaginal awareness.
• This cosmic felt sense brings vastness and belonging.
• There is something in us that quietly knows this larger context.

The Meaning Body
• Beneath emotion is the felt sense — a meaning-laden, pre-verbal sensation.
• It streams knowing not through thought but direct bodily experience.
• This “meaning body” is:
o Where intuitive knowing lives.
o A portal to wisdom and compassion.
o Life sensing itself in wholeness.

The Pearl and the Net
• The felt sense is a precious pearl in the ocean.
• The narrative is a trawler’s net — often pulling debris, sometimes treasure, but rarely the pearl.
• Mistaking the net for the ocean blinds us to the subtle truths within.

Focusing as Resting in Itself
• Focusing is the whole self resting in itself — not effort, but natural unfolding.
• There may be gentle intentionality, but even that fades.
• The process eventually looks after itself.

Sensing as Portal
• Sensing is not the end — it’s the portal to the "more" that knows its truth.
• It bypasses conceptual frameworks like duality or non-duality.
• The evaluating mind cares for labels; the body simply is.

Beyond Non-Duality
• Chasing “non-dual experiences” often leads to mental tangles.
• The body doesn’t care for duality or its absence — it just lives truthfully.
• Presence offers a refuge beyond all categories.

Focusing Meditation and The Dharma Discussion

Padmasambhava the Magician, Transformer and Fearless Friend.

Padmasambhava's Realm a short Invocation to Accompany you

Presence Deep Rest Meditations and Reflections inspired by Focusing, Mindfulness and Nonviolent communication Embodied Relational Presence training and personal coaching.  https://www.living-presence.co.uk/

The Presence Portal: Free yourself from Self Torture [in the Spiritual quest].

Simon McKibbin Presence Meditations & Reflections