When was the last time you were in the Hall of Mirrors at the funhouse of the arcade?
One mirror made you appear tall and skinny,
And another fat and short.
And now with morphing computer-driven images,
The distortions are practically infinite.
However,
The fun part is the knowing that the distorted images are not the real you.
And the only real image is the one you see of yourself in a plain,
Flat,
Clean mirror.
But even with that mirror,
What you see is colored by your own self-image,
Which changes from day to day depending upon how you are feeling in the moment.
A few days ago,
I discovered another view of the mirror of me.
I had placed my attention on the sounds I was hearing,
Just listening without naming each sound,
But allowing it to join together with the other sounds,
Each as a separate instrument in an orchestra.
I then added the sights and view as other instruments creating a local rock concert in my mind's eye.
Without much thought,
I added the sensations of sitting and any muscle twitches or skin itches,
And then the local aromas and tastes within my mouth.
It took some attention,
Concentration,
And focus to balance and hold all of these senses in mind at one time.
Very similar to balancing while riding a bicycle and then letting go of the handlebar.
As one sight,
Sound,
Taste,
Aroma,
Or sensation became prominent,
I rebalanced it with attention on the others.
Lastly,
I added any thoughts that appeared in my mind,
Creating a cacophony of extraordinary combined sense contacts.
When all of the awareness of the sense contacts and thought were in balance,
The resulting awareness shifted to one with no commentary,
No liking,
No disliking,
Just a peaceful,
Calm watching like reflections in a mirror.
They were of whatever was arising in consciousness,
And then the next one,
And the next.
It was a smoothly flowing stream of awareness of peaceful noticing.
As one sense contact became prominent,
My sense of flow and calm shut down,
Only to return again when I rebalanced all of the sense contacts.
The only problem that arose was when I did this while walking the dog.
A routine 10 minute walk extended into an extraordinary hour.
