Sit comfortably.
Find a posture that feels dignified and also lets you relax.
Let your eyes close.
Notice what happens as your eyes close and the visual world disappears.
You relax automatically because a significant source of tension has just been removed.
You're no longer constructing the world of visual objects.
Yes,
Open and close your eyes again to verify for yourself.
When your eyes are open,
You see yourself surrounded by solid objects that your mind is constantly constructing from visual sense impressions.
When your eyes are closed,
Your mind is profoundly relieved because it doesn't have to do all that work anymore.
Open and close them again.
See?
We're paring down distractions to get at the core of immediate experience.
For most of us,
Vision is the dominant sense.
When we close our eyes,
Hearing takes over.
Let's explore the immediate experience of the world as it appears to the sense of hearing.
Let sound be in the foreground of experience.
What sounds do you notice?
If you're playing the audio,
There's the sound of my voice.
What else?
Fans?
Machinery?
Traffic?
Voices?
Music?
Where are the sounds appearing?
With your eyes closed,
You have some memories indicating where some sounds originate.
You think those voices are outside the window because you saw some kids playing out there earlier.
You think the traffic must be from the main road down the block.
But you have no immediate experience of those locations.
They're nothing more than memories.
All you have now is sound.
All you have now is hearing.
And where is hearing?
What does the hearing world feel like?
You noticed when your eyes closed that the objects,
Borders,
And boundaries of the visual world disappeared.
The walls are gone.
The floor is gone.
The ceiling is gone.
The sense of enclosed space is gone.
What remains?
Feel your way into the hearing world.
Explore it.
Do you find any borders or boundaries?
Does anything prevent this world from being limitless?
Can you imagine being outside of it looking in?
No.
What you sense in this exploration is a clear,
Open,
Borderless,
Limitless spaciousness.
It may seem to be centered where you are and expand endlessly in all directions.
Or it may seem that you are this clear spaciousness.
You are tasting your real home.
You are seeing that you are present as this open clarity in which all the particular facets of experience take place.
All the sounds,
All the sensations,
All the thoughts,
All the feelings,
They all come and go in this borderless openness that is your aware presence.
Watch any of these objects as they appear,
Remain a while,
And subside.
Watch a thought go by,
A sound,
A body sensation.
They're the same in that they're all appearing to your aware presence.
Like space itself,
Your presence is always open and receptive to any object appearing.
Whether it's a thought,
A sight,
Or a sound,
There's never any resistance.
Resistance may arise a moment later as a reaction,
But the object is already there without resistance.
Otherwise,
The resistance couldn't happen.
This entire play,
This entire drama,
Is appearing in and as your aware presence.
This is your real home.
You inhabit it fully at every moment.
Now take a deep breath,
Release it,
Let all these details go,
And simply allow experience to be exactly as it is this very moment.
Don't look for particular objects.
Don't try to influence your attention in any way.
Simply watch as experience unfolds in your presence.
Enjoy the spaciousness.
Enjoy the peace.
Enjoy the total relaxation of having let go of every expectation,
Every rule,
Every belief.
Just be the experience.
Just be.
When you're ready,
Allow your eyes to open.
