Here are some Bardo Walk Exercises for you, from my upcoming guidebook of the same name.
You should be looking as you wander, for familiar faces — people you recognize, people you know, and people who seem familiar. All three of those categories are operating at the same time. You can indicate where there is a match, and use the space bar to stop the video to examine the scene better.
The level of expectation that you will find at least one match to someone you recognize gives this meditation walk the push it needs to succeed, but if there are no matches, it doesn’t mean there are no matches.
What I mean is, your attention will improve, from vague glances that somehow end up as some sort of glazed stare, all the way up the scale, to intense scrutiny of every passing face and figure.
For the purposes of this exercise, you can accept the stance or gait of someone as “recognizable”, and technically, it definitely counts as a “hit” or “match”.
For more information on how to use this exercise — for exercise it is — tune in on our morning zoom meeting.
Now this video is here just to encourage anyone who thinks of trying the street vendor or faire tent operator — it can be done.
Here is a video that allows you to identify with the foods being shown, and the addition of the actual recipes enhances the experience.
In the Bardos, you’ll have a whole lot of food more or less thrown in your face. Eat all you want, you’ll never get fat.
The object of this exercise is to note a reaction to the food, positive or negative, each time something happens, perhaps a phantom smell or taste???
Phantom effects are easily possible even years after the last contact with a hot pizza, because only 128 odors are actually recorded, and you can’t create a new one, just combine and recombine the ones already there, similar to MIDI, with which you get certain sounds already calculated.
So have you figured out yet, why local New Yorkers are so obsessed with these treats?
You know, if you were trying to film a walk without any interruptions, you’d be risking falling, tripping, getting into a conversation with a passer-by, or arousing the anger in a pedestrian ahead of you and suddenly getting punched in the mouth.
So far, I haven’t seen evidence of that sort of behavior in passing pedestrians, but we’re only just now heading into the Age of Trump.
This next exercise is to take note of the kinds of foods, the mood of the place, the visual hits from the food plus the environment, and of course, you’re still looking for familiar faces.
Now it’s time to see some cheap eats. Remember, in the Bardos, everything is edible, including you.
And anything you eat is made of you. You are it. Everything is everything else. It’s all connected. No matter where you go, there you are.
Are there any foods described or shown here that appeal to you? Okay, here’s another somewhat similar tour of New York City foods.
In this next section, try to actually taste the items being prepared and eaten. Try to smell the aromas rising from the foods, and at the same time, try to feel and sense the atmosphere of the place.
Try to become sensitive to the suggestions of the food aromatics.
Here’s an extra — try to imagine yourself as the food being prepared in this video.
See You At The Top!!!
gorby