Anchor Yourself In External Sight

A guided mindfulness meditation that focuses the attention on external sight and develops concentration (the ability to pay attention to whatever you want, for however short or long you want), sensory clarity (the ability to track whatever you're experiencing in real time) and coolness (the ability to allow pleasant and unpleasant experiences to come and go without push or pull.

Transcript

Today we're going to do a technique called C-Out and to get started you want to be sitting in a comfortable but alert position on a chair or on a cushion and in either case you want to elongate your spine so you try to raise the top of your head towards the ceiling and at the same time you let the rest of your body relax into the chair or the cushion.

And during this technique we limit our attention to only external visual sight and with paying attention to what we can see with our eyes we still have the option to have our eyes open or closed,

If you have your eyes open you have the option to have a soft gaze,

Have them kind of half open and don't look at anything in particular or if they are fully open then you look at an object in front of you or anything else that is in your sight without having to move your head in any way.

And if your eyes are closed that's fine too then you will be paying attention to the subtleties that you can detect that happens basically on your eyelids,

You can see light,

Darkness,

Some shimmering but there is much less activity that you can detect,

Neither one is fine.

And now by limiting your attention to external sight you try to notice what you are seeing and in the moment you notice what you are seeing you label it in your mind with the word see and after you label it you just keep watching whatever you noticed for a couple of seconds and then you repeat the process.

You might be noticing the wall at the end of the room,

If your eyes are half open or soft gaze maybe you notice multiple objects at the same time that's fine also.

Whenever you notice what you are seeing you label it with see,

You just keep watching.

The rhythm of the labels should be more or less like this,

See,

See,

See.

There's not going to be a lot of breaks between the labels,

There's not going to be a lot of breaks in your concentration.

Whenever you notice what you are seeing you can try to pay attention to certain details of what you are able to see like the location of the object that you see,

What is the size of the object,

Does it have a shape,

Does it have a color,

Is the object moving or static,

Trying to notice those details develops the second skill that we are working on which is clarity.

Notice you are getting distracted,

That's no problem,

Every time you notice it and you return your attention to seeing you are strengthening your concentration.

The third skill that we are developing is coolness,

The ability to stay cool with whatever we are experiencing,

Whether we like it or we don't like it.

Try to be open towards that experience,

Which is you are seeing something that you don't like and you just keep seeing it anyway and try to be okay with that reaction that you have.

You can also try to stay cool with things that are outside of your focus range,

So maybe you are hearing something that you don't like that is distracting you,

Maybe you are feeling something that is distracting you and that's all okay,

You don't need to make those things go away,

You don't need to eliminate or stop your thoughts,

You don't need to stop any sounds,

Try to be cool with those unpleasant experiences that are outside of your focus range,

Just let them be there and you have the ability to choose to pay attention to external side.

If you notice,

There is a lot of thoughts and opinions depending on what you are seeing and that's okay,

Your mind just reacts in many different ways to everything that you experience and there is no need to stop that,

But even though your mind is active and has certain opinions or memories,

Every time you notice that,

You can just let it be there,

If it's a nice memory or a pleasant thought,

Try not to cling to it and again return your attention to external side and restart the process of noticing,

Labeling it with C and then just seeing what you labeled for around 3 seconds.

Okay great job everyone.

Reviews

I like 3rd person external seeing. Thank you.
Peace, love n Cheer!

I love this. I have long enjoyed the thought of how external light and our inner light interact. I use a practice called "contemplative photography" (and started a group by the same name a couple days ago here on IT - I invite any/all to check it out), and this practice uses external images to permit introspection as to how we present our inner light to the world through our photos and the external light we capture. In order to mindfully capture that light though, we must first SEE that light. Your practice here really helped me to focus on my external vision but not get so bogged down in observing it that I lose my inner still Ness. That has happened often to me as I have taken photographs. I hadn't really figured out how to maintain my equanimiy until I did your practice here. Clearly, I have much to learn and practice. Thank you for opening this door to me and showing me a way to enhance my practice. Bookmarked and downloaded. I thank you for sharing this with me and the world. I see the light in you. 🤲❤️🤲

Lovely steady practice which helped me to keep stray thoughts at bay, thanks

I liked learning this technique ... the explanation and practice of this process was very clear and concise. I gained a greater understanding of Visualizing and techniques✨
...with Gratitude

Very useful practice for improving focus and discipline. Thank you.🙏🏼