46. Meditation 23

Pay attention to the cloud of physical sensations, and look for your self.

So take your seat. And close your eyes. And feel the weight of your body. Resting against your seat. Or against the cushion. And see if you can let it quickly resolve itself into a cloud of sensation. Forget about the parts of your body. You don’t notice hands or feet. Or shoulders. Or you’re back. There’s just each new sensation. And there’s no telling which will appear next. And into this cloud of sensation. There appears all of the. Feelings associated with the breath. Notice these two. This sounds. Notice thoughts. Notice images, however fleeting. Notice changes in your visual field. In the darkness behind your eyelids. And notice the sense that there’s a you at the center of it all. If you feel that. See if you can. See the basis for it? How is it that you feel that? Where is that sense of self appearing? It, too, must be an appearance in consciousness. Otherwise, you wouldn’t feel it. It must have some signature. Is it in your face? Is it in your chest? And if it’s appearing in consciousness, how can it define? What consciousness is in itself? How is it anything other than an object? Like a thought or a sound. Or a sensation in your knee. And the moment you notice, you’re lost in thought. Catch the thought itself. As it disappears. And also catch this feeling. Of being the observer of the thought. Where is that appearing? What is aware of that? Is there actually an observer? In each moment. Or is there just observing? In this last minute. Follow the breath as closely as you can. You might make a mental note of in and out. Or count each inhalation and exhalation. Just a very soft mental note that covers the duration of each breath. And simply receive the breath, don’t reach out for it. Or anticipated. Just let it appear on its own. Well, once again. Thank you for the efforts you’re making here. This is a increasingly common but. Actually, still fairly esoteric. Thing to be doing with your time. But it is a really remarkable way of framing the rest of what you’re doing with your time. Because whatever you do for the rest of the day. It will still be a matter of consciousness and its contents living as you through the day. There will just be seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, thinking, react and judging all of these processes. That greets you. When you’re simply trying to pay attention, this is your life. But it’s only in these deliberate moments of training attention. That we gain this extra capacity to be clearly aware of what’s arising. And aware of our reactions to it. And to relinquish those for a time. And more and more, if you can allow this way of being to interrupt your habits of judging and reacting and pushing and pulling in each moment. You can begin to notice a truly profound sense of relief. You can give up the war for moments at a time. And that capacity as it grows, really begins to matter. It can become a kind of superpower. It can become something that changes what you’re able to do in each moment. The things you’re able to say or not say. And this is good for relationships, for careers, for the way we feel in the privacy of our own minds, this becomes a way to navigate in this landscape of possible experiences. And without it, we’re just blown around by the winds of our own reactivity. Each thought becomes what we are and what we do and how we feel. That is until we’re mindful of it. So see if you can find those moments of clarity in the midst of your day.