Noticing sense experience using undirected attention.
Taking time to arrive in yourself and taking time not to do anything but just to be in your posture in a relaxed open way and perhaps making any small adjustments that you need to.
It can be helpful to start with your eyes open and one of the things that does is that it means we don't go into something of an automatic meditation mode.
We come fresh to the moment rather than doing what we always do.
We're in the moment as we are right now.
But whether you have your eyes open or closed,
See if you can notice any tendency to automatic mind.
The attitude that just wants to get on with it once you're physically in the posture.
And see if it's possible to just allow yourself to come quite naturally to presence.
Perhaps noticing where the attention is naturally going in an undirected way.
What the attention is naturally taking in.
Noticing where the attention is going from a settled back relaxed way of being.
Open way of looking and being aware.
And in the first exploration of our senses just letting the attention come to rest at different points within the physical body.
Noticing the quality of energy or effort that you're using to notice what's happening within the sphere of the body.
And see if you can have that quality of energy or effort be really light and open.
Perhaps think of attending to and being aware of what's happening rather than making any particular effort.
We're just noticing and relaxing and reducing any unnecessary effort.
And then we can notice where the attention goes,
Where the awareness goes within the body.
Inhabiting,
Embodying different sensations.
Tuning in really gently to the direct experience of those sensations wherever you notice them in what we call body.
What's the actual experience in terms of such things as temperature,
Different types of contact,
Pulsing,
Tingling,
Moistness or dryness,
Hardness or softness,
Pressure,
Smoothness.
And you may find labels such as these come to name parts of the body or different types of sensation.
And that's quite natural.
And see if you can lean in a bit more to the actual experience and dial down just a little for labeling,
Conceptualizing,
Describing mind.
It will carry on and we let it carry on.
And we continue to tune in to the feel of the body in all its different ways.
One of the ways we can conceptualize around experience is attributing a location.
The thought that something is happening in here or down there.
And just notice if the mind is doing this.
It's a natural function of the mind,
Of perception.
So just noticing that subtle conceptualizing that's happening.
And again then leaning into what can be known more directly.
And now from a place of more groundedness,
Relaxation and embodiment,
Tune in to the sense of hearing.
Sounds happening.
Noticing how automatic it is for the mind to label sounds.
The sound of a bird or a car,
The refrigerator humming,
The neighbor's dog barking.
Again,
Just let those labels be there,
But not dominant.
Tune in to hearing as it happens.
Notice any sense of reaching out towards a sound.
And see if we can simply know what's happening from a very settled back place.
Resting in and relaxing.
Knowing sounds.
Perhaps noticing any subtle differences between hearing and listening.
Both are natural to the mind,
But they can have a different feeling quality to them.
Does listening involve a narrow,
More directed attention?
Like putting a flashlight on an aspect of our experience.
Highlighting it.
And how does hearing manifest in contrast?
Perhaps softer,
Broader,
More of a floodlight,
Illuminating whole areas of experience in the mind.
Noticing if there's a difference in the amount of energy involved in hearing or listening.
And perhaps the amount of tension or relaxation.
And you might not know,
But allowing the questions to interest the mind in what's happening.
Sometimes when we're using more energy,
It's possible to notice the feeling of trying to hear,
Trying to listen.
Notice how that act of trying manifests in the body and in the mind.
The sound is happening anyway.
If we have the ability to hear and we're present,
We'll naturally know the sound.
Trying is extra.
And simply being present is enough.
Just relaxing into knowing.
Sound as sound.
We can also tune into the space between sounds.
Or the space around sounds.
The sound of silence.
Knowing sounds.
Knowing silence.
And now as well as hearing,
Tuning back in with that sense of embodiment through the touch sensations of the body.
You might notice the quality of undirected attention moving from one sense object to another.
Attending happening from one moment to the next.
Attending accompanied by awareness.
Broad,
Relaxed,
Open.
If the visual sense is not accessible to you,
Staying with the touch sensations and hearing.
Otherwise,
If your eyes are not already open,
Open the eyes.
Let the eyes be really soft so that the seeing is soft.
And as with hearing,
Notice.
There's no question of trying to see.
But simply noticing that seeing is happening.
Happening on its own.
But we can be aware of it.
Let the eyes be soft and the vision be broad.
It can almost be like seeing out of the corner of the mind's eye.
Being especially aware of the peripheral vision.
So that perhaps you're seeing is broader than usual.
Seeing is often where we identify strongly with the conceptual mode.
The things that we see.
The objects seen through the visual sense.
So notice if that's happening.
Be aware of the mind conceptualizing around what is being seen.
Lean into the sense of simply knowing that seeing is happening.
Colors,
Shapes,
Forms.
Let there be a relaxation of the mind that's always trying to make sense of what it's seeing,
What it's hearing,
And what it's touching.
You could think of seeing through the whole body.
Whole body seeing.
You might like to explore the difference between receptive,
Undirected seeing and the more active and directed attention of looking.
You could play with looking at something within your environment and see how long you can sustain the looking before the mind naturally wants to move to something else.
Practice looking without staring,
Without tension,
Or trying too hard.
Notice how the mind can move quite naturally between seeing and looking.
Seeing in a broad way and then the attention being drawn by a particular object in the visual field and looking then happens.
And now opening out the awareness to beyond the visual sense and including once again sounds and touch sensations,
Including mind objects such as thoughts and images and also the feel of the mind.
You might notice how a thought or an image feels in the mind.
Letting the awareness be really soft and open.
Resting back.
You might notice other mind objects,
The mind perceiving or labeling or knowing,
The mind that knows it is aware,
The mind that knows experiences one moment after another.
And in the last few minutes of the practice,
Just opening to your sense experience,
Including the mind sense and aware of whatever happens in your experience from this open,
Relaxed,
Settled back perspective.
