Four possible techniques for exploring your life:
- Pay attention to the difference between seeing, hearing, and feeling. You may see something, such as a tree out your window or an image of a tree in your mind. You may hear something, such as a bird in the tree, or talk in your mind. You may feel something, such as the floor under your feet, or an emotion in your body. To do this technique, let anything arise in your awareness and determine if the experience is "See," "Hear," or "Feel." Pay attention to just that for a second or two, drop it, and let the same thing or something else arise in your awareness. Repeat this 3-to-5 second cycle
for at least ten minutes, allowing each experience to arise and pass
away freely.
- Pay
attention to the difference between inside and outside. You may see, hear, or feel things within yourself or outside of yourself. Note each experience that arises as "In" or "Out." Your inner world of seeing or hearing thoughts and feeling emotions is called "In." The outer world of material objects, such as seeing, hearing or feeling your physical body or things in your environment, is "Out." To do this technique, let anything arise in your awareness, determine if it is "In" or "Out," pay attention to just that for a second or two, drop it, and let the same thing or something else arise. Repeat this 3-to-5 second cycle for at least ten minutes, allowing each experience to arise and pass away freely.
- Pay attention to the difference between something and nothing. You may see, hear, or feel something on inside yourself or outside
yourself. On the other hand, at a given moment nothing may arise in
the space you are paying attention to, and you may not see, or hear, or
feel, something. We may see a bird, or we may not see anything since we
are gazing off into space. We may hear ourselves talking in our heads,
or we may not hear anything since we are not talking in our heads at that
moment. Two more examples of nothing as we define it are the blank
screen you can see behind your closed eyes, and feeling physical
relaxation. To
do this technique, any time something arises in your awareness, note it
as "Something." If nothing arises, note that as "Nothing." Pay
attention to the experience of Something or Nothing for a second or
two, let it go, and pay attention again. Repeat this 3-to-5 second
cycle for at least ten minutes, allowing each to arise and pass away
freely.
- Pay attention to how things change. You may
observe something as a stable entity, or you may observe the constant change in whatever we perceive. Sometimes change is fast, sometimes slow, but any experience may be observed as changing. For example, we may have pain on our
bodies. It may seem totally solid and firm. On
the other hand, it may seem to clench or spread, move in waves or undulate
in intensity. To do this
technique, any time an experience arises, pay attention to if it changes. If it seems completely stable, just keep observing it, enjoying its stability. If it seems that any part of it is changing in
any way, note it with the word "Flow." For at least ten minutes, pay attention to any Flow you may observe, dropping deeper into it for as long as it remains, allowing it to arise and pass away freely.
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