Tour Of The Senses

Suitable for all levels of practitioners, and an excellent introduction to the flagship See-Hear-Feel technique of Unified Mindfulness, developed by Shinzen Young. This practice sharpens sensory awareness and heightens attentional skills.

Transcript

OK. We recommend that you always take a minute at the beginning of a formal practice period to check in with your posture. Make sure. It's important to find a position where you can be optimally comfortable and alert. So we sit up if we can. We have our backs straight if we can. And try to get our arms and legs always in a position where they don't have to do any efforting at all. So we're going to take a tour of our sense experience, Starting with inner visual activity that we call CN. So to focus in this inner visual space, In the beginning, We work really intentionally with real geographic space, Noticing where mental images or lack thereof come up for you. So for most people, This seems to be somewhere around the front of their head, Inside their head. It can also be the space around you, As though your eyes were open. You may have a visual sense of the room that you're in and a sense of your own body, The space you're taking up. In general, When there's thinking, Memory, Plan, And fantasy tend to happen near the front of the head. Mental images related to awareness of present circumstances tend to be the same space that you're taking up. And for most people, This is easier to contact with your eyes closed, But it's never required. If it's easier or interesting to you, You're welcome to have your eyes open while you contact what you see with your mind. So since our focus range right now is only inner visual experience, We'll let all auditory and all somatic experience be in the background. And what we mean by background is just we don't struggle with it. We might notice that it's there, And then you gently turn your attention back to your visual field and your mind. And now there's no right way to notice what you see. The point is to be with whatever your experience is. So it may be very localized. You may have a specific image, Or it may be very vague and expansive. There may only be a sense of the visual space with nothing clear. Could be very restful, Like no images at all, Only grayness or colors. And your attention may move around quite a bit, Or it may want to really settle and linger on particular visual experiences. So whatever you notice, Whether it's active or restful, Stable or flowing, Very clear or very vague, Every few seconds, Just use a light touch effort to connect with that sensory experience. And that's the noting, Noting where your awareness has landed. And I recommend that you apply the label, See. See, So in your mind it sounds like see, See, See. See, See, See. See, See, See. See, See, See, See. See, See, See, See. So if you notice things outside of your focus range, You gently let those go and turn back to inner visual experience. That means if you have auditory thinking or feelings of confusion or frustration or resistance, Those are not in your focus range now. Strengthen our equanimity and concentration by letting that be in the background and gently turning your attention back to visual. If it's vague, You just let it be vague. Now if your eyes have been closed, Open them just a little bit so that you're looking down, That you're letting in quite a bit of light. And we'll focus on see out for a couple of minutes, Releasing whatever mental images you may have had, And noting now what you see with your eyes. You can allow your gaze to move. You can allow it to be still. You can allow your gaze to relax and let things go blurry. That's a restful experience for most people. You may notice stable qualities of visual experience or flowing qualities, Which just means the changing nature of things. Things can seem to actually move or seem to seemingly move. Powerful innovation of this system is flexible labels. We keep our labels very simple, Which helps not engage the analytical minds as much. So again, Now we know our focus range is see out. And we'll use the label see again. So every few seconds, Notice where your attention has landed and penetrate that visual experience and apply the label see. All of these techniques that we're practicing today are highly applicable to daily life that allows you to leave very little time on the table if you want to accelerate your practice. You can apply this mindful awareness as you're walking and eating throughout the retreat, Keeping a focus range, Keeping practice going. So now relax your gaze a little bit. We're going to work with what we call just see, Which means that we'll include inner and outer visual experience. For some people, The outer may blot out the inner, Like the sun being out blotting out the stars. But the inner is still there. And you may be pulled. You may be called. Or you might look. You can take a slightly active stance as we were just talking about a minute ago. And notice with your eyes open if you have mental images or if it's restful, So if you're pulled by anything you hear or anything you feel, When you notice that, Return to visual. And every few seconds, Connect deeply to where your awareness has landed. And apply the label see. It's normal to get very sleepy, Especially your first few days of a retreat. We have tools for that. You can always straighten up again. A straight spine signals your brain to be alert. You can open your eyes. Let's let go of visual experience and explore auditory for a little while. Inner auditory space. That's what we say when we're referring to the location where talking to yourself would occur. Or hearing a song in your head. Any ruminating or thinking that involves sound. For most people, This is around the ears or inside your head. But for many people, It's somewhere else in the head. I've heard people say the back of the head or the throat. So if you place your attention in that location, You don't need to make anything happen, But we're attending. Watching closely like a cat at a mouse hole to note what is happening or not happening in here in space. We have a gift right now of some ambient sounds that you can use as an aid to concentration, Clarity, And equanimity. Shenzhen calls this attentional judo. You use some effort to place your attention back in inner auditory space, Noticing is there commentary, Is there quiet. Whatever you find there, Soaking into that. And apply the label here. And we don't label our labels, By the way. So if your attention is drawn to the word here in your mind, You ignore that. And we quickly can get into the habit of that just being a support tool. So even if things are quiet in your mind, That's a restful auditory experience. There's more to be learned about it, Whether it moves, Whether it takes up space, Can soak into an auditory experience of sound or rest, Varying degrees of rest. Even a pull toward that space counts as here. So now let go of that and open your awareness to ambient sound, What you hear with your ears. Let any inner dialogue now be in the background. And you may note sounds of leaf blower, And the heater, And the clock, And sirens, People in the room. And you may notice a lot of quiet between the sounds or in various directions. As we gain sensory clarity, You may get more and more detail about the sounds, Different qualities of change, Volume, The contour of that experience. So try to keep your attention in the space that generally surrounds you in all directions, Listening, Attending the auditory, Hear out space. And every few seconds when you note an external auditory experience, Apply the label here. And you may notice a lot of quiet between the sounds and the ear, And you may notice a lot of quiet between the sounds and the ear. So if you forget you are meditating or you catch yourself thinking or falling asleep, So all opportunities can greet each one with equanimity, A gift, A little piece of clarity reminds you to return to your focus range of hear out. And now expand your Mil tracks so that we And now expand your awareness of auditory space a little bit to include here in so that we'll be practicing just here for a couple of minutes. We'll continue to let visual and somatic experience be in the background. Let your attention move between talk space, External sound. It's OK to stay in one of those. If that's what's natural, That would be a passive stance. Or if you want to see more about the interplay, What's there, You can look on purpose. That would be an active stance. Every few seconds, Allow your attention to really settle on an auditory experience, Whether active or restful, And apply a little effort to soak into that sound or quiet and apply the label here. Now let's let go of that and bring our attention into the body. We'll start with what's more subtle for most people, Feel in. This is the emotional landscape. So you may have a sense of an emotional center. Some people have an emotional center in the torso. For some people, It's more global and all over sense of where emotions may take place. And just as with any sense category, You don't have to find anything to be doing the technique perfectly. It's about attending to the space where that sense experience happens. So if you're attending to the body and you do not notice emotion, That's fine. That's a restful experience. And if you happen to have sharp or clear emotional sensations, That's fine. You can soak into an emotional experience and know it more completely, The edges of it, The movement of it, Developing equanimity with the body. And you can feel the energy in the body and know it more completely, The edges of it, The movement of it, Developing equanimity with things being just as they are. And many people find it challenging to disambiguate physical from emotional sensations. The key is it's completely subjective. So you can have a sensation that seems clearly physical at one time. And at another time, You may have the same sensation that seems to be emotional in nature. So that's it. Notice if you have a sensation, If it's emotional in nature, It's in your focus range. You would label that feel. If you do not notice any sensations that are clearly emotional, That's emotional rest. And you can also label that feel. It also doesn't have to be black and white. There are traditional practices that focus on valence, The sense of something being unpleasant or pleasant. And that's enough. You don't have to know what an emotion is. Just note every few seconds where your attention is in the body and connect to that sense experience, Whether active or restful. And apply the label feel. This is a really easy and wonderful place to recycle any challenges that might come up on retreat if there's any confusion, Frustration, Boredom, Doubting, Agitation, Sleepiness. These things will show up in the body, And then you can work with them, Use them as fuel for the practice. So if the ambient sounds are distracting, It's a great example of something that you can make good use of, Noticing if it triggers any kind of emotional response. Even the slightest bit of irritation or frustration gives you the opportunity to find out where that takes place and the shape and the movement of it. Now you can let go of that looking and the emotional landscape and just be aware of any sensation of the body, The feel-out range. This one is usually accessible easily to just about everyone. Anything ordinary, Pressures and pains, Itches, Hunger, Air on your face, Your clothes, Eyes moving, Your breath, Your heartbeat, All these sensations. How wonderful to have this always available at any time. During the day, You can narrow your focus range to feel out. Let everything else be in the background. And have a very productive practice period, Just attending to your physical body experience. And again, We always frame this in terms of the space where these things happen. So if your attention goes to a neutral place in the body, A place with no feeling, It's just a restful physical experience. So every few seconds, Note where in the body your attention is. Soak into that experience and apply the label, Feel. And for just a couple of minutes, Include both inner and outer somatic experience. Just feel. You can relax, Take a passive stance, And note any body experience that calls to you. You can let your attention move or you can let it be stable. Or you can take a more active stance, If you like, And look here and there in the body, Just feel. Now we've been practicing quite a while, And we'll finish by practicing see, Hear, Feel. It could be informative to find out how your attention works with all of your skills after working in each modality separately. Now relax your attention. See, Hear, Feel is also sometimes called note everything because everything is in your focus range. It's a very passive technique. Just notice every few seconds where your attention happens to be. It will be somewhere in the just see, Just hear, And just feel spaces. So to get the most mileage out of that, Every few seconds apply a label so in your mind it'll sound like something like see, See, Feel, Hear. The only possible distraction in see, Hear, Feel is to be caught up in thinking and completely forget that you're meditating. So if that happens, Great. Then as soon as you notice, Just apply the technique to that distraction, Noticing whether it was primarily see, Hear, Or feel. And then you recycle that right back into your practice. Notice, Note everything. Now we're going to transition into a period of reports and questions. And I'll recommend that you apply your attentional skills to your transitions, Especially coming out of any formal practice period, Noticing if your attentional skills seem heightened, Noticing whether you can continue to apply them a little bit while we have a period of discussion. Come in.

Reviews

This was the longest meditation practice I’ve done in a while. I’m new to this technique but I felt like this was a great way to explore the different inner and outer senses and bring them together. I feel more clear and was able to maintain the focus area better than expected. Thank you!

Thanks Marcy. I’ve been looking for a straightforward introduction to working with the senses to practice together with my adult daughter. This is perfect.