Shapes & Forms - reflections from retreat

One of the instructions or pointings during the meditation practice was to stay in being and awareness and not take “form”, stay “shapeless” and formless.

Some forms, we willingly jump straight into, because I guess we like being in them. Others we go there out of habit and because they are familiar or expected of us, and others that we don’t want to take on and we do not like we avoid, we avoid relationships and activities that put us in them. If we do find ourselves in them or rather put in them we often feel fixed and suffocated. The saving grace perhaps of that experience is that its felt uncomfortableness makes the form more noticeable.

We wear clothes most of the time but mostly we are not consciously aware we are wearing them. Unless they are uncomfortable in some way - if they are not warm enough or light enough, if they are itchy or tight, then we notice. Then we are aware of them. I might be aware of the tight waist of my trousers all day; until I start to accommodate and find ways to disengage with the experience of it, even though it is no less uncomfortable. Maybe somewhere down the line, if I had to wear that tight pair of trousers every day, the sensation and uncomfortable experience become so familiar, that I habitually repeat the process, of wearing them despite the uncomfortableness and despite the other possible choices available to me.

I think our forms are not too dissimilar to this. We take shape.

I suppose partly we take shape to accommodate the incoming energy that, being part of the world, is called to respond and manifest. And so the dance continues.

But perhaps we need to, in fact we should, be more discerning of how the energy manifests. Especially if it is not manifesting how we would have liked it to. In those moments, on reflection afterwards, I wonder: At which point did I disengage so completely, for the energy to move in directions I didn’t want it to?

I suppose the less time we spend in the quiet space of things yet to manifest, where our tendencies can be observed, it becomes more difficult to be actively involved in the direction of travel. It becomes a rollercoaster ride instead, and it might have its ups but it also has its downs.

It does take practice and attention. It needs persistent perseverance and nothing short of that. If not more.