First,
You can just take a moment to settle in here.
You can close your eyes if you like.
Maybe move into a posture that feels stable and relaxed.
And maybe just a few deep breaths.
Lose your head and come to your senses.
Or lose your mind and come to your senses.
That's essentially what we'll be doing here.
I'll guide you through systematically becoming aware of each of the senses.
You could call them each of the sense doors.
We'll pay attention to each sense one by one.
And notice how story immediately begins to build in relation to the sense.
It's like we start by just feeling.
And then we start climbing up a ladder into our filters,
Into story.
We start labeling what we feel.
And we evaluate it.
We judge it.
Keep adding more story to it.
We keep automatically climbing into story.
It's just what the mind does and it's very powerful.
But it can take us over.
It's a powerful helper,
But a terrible master.
So in this practice we will just keep noticing the movement into story.
And then keep dropping back down the ladder into pure sense.
In this realm of pure sense,
Nothing needs to be done.
Nothing needs to be described or figured out or fixed or optimized.
It just is.
Okay,
And you might come back to your breath.
Maybe a couple deep inhales and exhales.
Returning to an awareness that you are alive right now.
That this is the present moment.
And now if you can just take all of your attention and shine it like a flashlight on just the sense of hearing.
Just become aware of the feeling of hearing.
There is a certain sensation to it.
Might be sounds coming from me,
Or sounds from your environment,
Or from inside your body.
And just notice whenever you begin to label sound.
Maybe the sound of a bird,
Or a car,
Or someone from another room.
And see if you can drop those familiar labels.
Let them go completely.
Let go of the label and the mental image.
Let go of any evaluation of this is something I don't want to hear,
This is something I want to hear,
This is good,
This is bad.
All the way down to any sort of label at all.
But just keep dropping back down into the pure feeling of hearing.
Just hear it.
And now let's switch over to the sense of physical touch,
Physical feeling.
You might feel the clothes against your skin.
Your body as it touches your seat or the floor.
Any sense of pressure,
Temperature,
Tingling.
Maybe pain or discomfort.
And again,
See if you can let go of any label,
Any story about what you're feeling.
And then drop back down into the pure sense of touch.
Just letting it fill you up completely.
Okay,
And now let's turn the flashlight of attention to both the sense of smell and taste.
These are two very related senses.
So let's just take a moment to become aware of smell and taste happening together.
And you might take an inhale through the nostrils.
Or you might swallow.
It's okay if you don't smell or taste anything in particular.
Just feeling,
Smelling,
And tasting.
Okay,
And now let's switch our attention to vision.
And you can keep your eyes closed here.
Experiencing vision with eyes closed.
There might be some sense of light.
Or shadows.
Just allow yourself to see and let go of the need to do anything about it.
Or to describe it or figure it out.
Just keep dropping into pure sense,
The feeling of seeing with your eyes closed.
Okay,
And now let's turn our attention to the sense of smell and taste.
Let's shift now into the experience of thinking.
I believe we can become aware of thinking just like any of these other senses.
It's something that is simply happening,
Constantly arising and passing,
Out of nowhere and into nowhere.
And we can just watch it.
So for a moment here,
Shift all of your attention,
That flashlight of attention,
Onto thinking.
The feeling of thinking.
Just allow it to happen however it does.
It's interesting,
Sometimes when you look for thinking,
And really allow it to be there,
It's like there's nothing there to find.
Just keep allowing thinking to be whatever it is happening now.
Okay and now one final shift.
Throughout each of these senses,
Some part of you has been aware of each of them.
Some part of you has been aware of hearing,
Of touch,
Smell and taste,
Vision and thinking.
So just see if you can,
In whatever way you can,
Become aware of what has been aware this whole time.
So see if you can turn your attention back on that source of the flashlight.
Just noticing however you do,
What it is that notices.
Being the very source of you,
Beneath all story,
Beneath all good and bad,
Just the very basic source of your awareness.
So that's my round about today,
Enjoy!
And you might just take a few more breaths here,
Shifting out of the practice and into the rest of your day.
You can gradually move your body around.
You can gently open your eyes back up.
In each moment,
It is possible to notice the filtering of life into my story,
And by noticing I can then drop beneath story into pure sense.
And in the realm of pure sense,
Nothing is wrong or right.
It just is.
