51. Alone with Others
Okay, so this lesson is an exercise for practicing in public. And to do this, you need to find someplace in public where you can sit comfortably. And then watch people come and go in a way that’s unobtrusive. So you might be sitting on a park bench, or in a cafe or in an airport, any place where you can sit and be undistracted and just observe the comings and goings of other people without being thought a psychopath. These need to be people at some distance from you a street scene, people walking past you in the park. Moving about the terminal in an airport, some public place where you won’t seem too odd just looking into the distance and seeing people. And as always get comfortable, sit more or less with your spine erect. And simply stare into space. And keep your vision as relaxed and as wide as possible. And then just watch, as people come and go in your visual field, you can listen to sounds and feel the sensations in your body. But privilege vision as your primary sense here. And as people walk toward you and away from you notice the feeling of being located in space. Does it feel like they’re walking toward something or away from something?
As someone comes toward you notice the sensation of being approached. What is it that they’re walking towards? Again, keep your vision very wide and relaxed. Don’t fixate on the particulars of the people around you.
Just observe this feeling of being in relationship to others and being implicated by their gaze or potentially implicated by their gaze. Notice this feeling of being a potential object for others in the world. Now, this feeling will be heightened if someone actually makes eye contact with you. Of course, there’s no need to be a weirdo and stare at them intently you can look away. But notice the feeling that anchors you here this seems to define you. This is the feeling that you call I this is the feeling that you exist as a subject behind your face behind your eyes. This is the feeling of being a self and this is the self that is an illusion. And which can be discovered. as such. its absence can be found and felt. As you watch people come and go in this way, gently look for yourself. Look for the subject. Look for the one who has seen you might actually experiment with walking now you can get up and walk down the sidewalk or through the park, wherever you happen to be. And as you walk again, keep your vision very wide, just gazing into space. And as others come toward you. Look for where it is you think you are. Where’s the one who is being approached? Whereas the one who has seen your body is simply appearing in consciousness along with the bodies of others. Where are you in this moment? No matter how much you look, you won’t find the subject. There’s simply this open space of consciousness of sights and sounds merely appearing. Again pay attention as closely as you can. Unless someone is walking toward you or coming into your field of view and then leaving it Look for yourself. Look for the subject. Look for the experiencer behind your face who is appropriate and experience in each moment. Look for the center of consciousness. As you develop stronger powers of mindfulness, and concentration, and grow more sensitive to what there is to be noticed here, you might find that in this first instance, of looking for yourself, the moment you attempt to turn attention upon itself, there’s this break in the sense of being located. where perhaps for the briefest of moments, the person walking toward you, for a step or two is clearly seen, and yet is no longer felt to be walking toward anyone, or anything. Rather, what you experience in that moment, is simply the world has a kind of seamless whole, your consciousness is just the space in which sights and sounds and sensations are appearing. That includes the sight of your body, and the sensations associated with walking, or sitting. And there’s no you in the middle of it. The feeling of self, the feeling that others now are approaching you, or walking away. The feeling of being located is itself another appearance in consciousness. And if you look for it, the feeling itself can drop away. And then for that moment, you’re no longer on the outside of the world looking in, you’re no longer behind your face. So in this moment, as you see people walking toward you or away, look for the one behind your eyes.
And if in that first instant, you can see that there is just the world just consciousness and its contents. Rest as that. Then the moment you begin thinking was that it is that it notice that thought itself, arising and passing away in consciousness.