We've spent the last few days working with flow,
The dynamic quality of experience.
There's a specific type of change in experience that we did not work with yet,
And that's when all or part of something disappears abruptly and you notice it.
Shenzhen calls this gone.
Some sensory experience arises,
It stays for a while,
And then it goes away.
To pay attention to gone,
We specifically pay attention to when experiences go away.
It could be that they've disappeared entirely,
Or it could be that we're noticing them fade away or gradually start to disappear.
So we'll bring our attention to anything we can see,
Hear,
Or feel,
But we'll be looking for when an experience ends,
And we'll label that phenomenon as gone.
For example,
You hear a bird sing and it stops,
The sound ends,
That's gone.
You notice an itch and either you scratch it or it goes away on its own,
Gone.
You breathe in and you notice when the in-breath stops and there's a slight pause before you breathe out,
The in-breath is gone.
Then the pause is gone,
Then the out-breath is gone,
And so on.
So anytime you notice something vanishing,
You'll just note it by clearly acknowledging that either all or part of it has passed away.
You can use the label gone to help you acknowledge this.
If nothing vanishes for a while,
That's okay,
Just wait and observe until something does go away.
If you notice a thought occurring,
Notice the end of it.
It's common for people to notice the arising of something new,
But less common to notice when something ends.
We're usually drawn to what's new.
Getting sensitized to the other side of things,
When objects pass away,
Gives you a more complete picture of what's actually happening in your experience.
Let's begin the practice.
Take a moment to stretch up and settle in.
Allow your attention to freely float among anything you can see,
Hear,
Or feel,
Whether internal or external,
Active or restful.
Apply your sensory clarity to attempt to notice any time any sensory experience ends or disappears.
Even if only part of the experience vanishes,
That counts.
Note that as gone,
Applying the mental label gone if you wish to use labels.
The experience might stay gone or come back right away,
But notice if even for a moment it disappears.
For example,
If your eyes are open and you blink,
What you could see before blinking becomes gone while your eyes are closed,
Even though it comes back when your eyes open again.
You don't need to find vanishings in all the categories of see,
Hear,
And feel.
You may find it more accessible in one of these categories or another.
Wherever you're able to detect them,
Work there.
Each time you notice an experience becoming gone,
Try to bring your full attention to that vanishing.
You're focusing on the cessation of the experience,
The disappearance of it.
You may notice as I speak,
Each word and phrase has an ending.
You can note gone each time you notice my voice stopping.
You can apply this to any sound you hear that ends,
Any sight,
Any feeling that you notice happening for some period of time,
And then ending.
I started my current eight-year period of mindfulness practice doing this technique,
Or more specifically,
Hear gone.
I found that it helped me get into high concentration states as I had to apply intense focus to be able to detect as many gons as I could.
So,
Applying your concentration to detect these can be a great way to get into deep absorptive states of high focus.
As we wrap up this five-minute session,
Take your time transitioning out of practice.
Know that any time you can pay attention to the partial or complete vanishings of sensory experience,
You're building your mindfulness skills.
You might experiment with trying this from time to time throughout your day.
Thank you.
