52. Meditation 26

Practice looking for “the self” and notice the feeling of subject-object duality.

Let’s begin the session with eyes open. And now I’d like you to stare at an object in your visual field. Doesn’t matter what it is. Could be your phone. A tree. Something on your desk. As you gaze at this thing out in the world, notice that you’re seeing it and notice the sense that you are looking across space at it from some point. Behind your face. Notice this subject object. Feeling. And now simply look for the subject. Look for the place that you seem to be looking from. Try to turn attention around upon itself. And do this quickly. To its suddenly. This isn’t a gradual process. Simply look at the object. And then look for what’s looking. And in that first instant of looking. See if something changes. You might focus your attention with a sound. For instance, listen to the sound of my snapping. Use that sound. To make your effort here very brief. You’re looking at an object. And in the space of this finger snap. Look for what’s looking. Simply turn attention upon itself. And then rest wide open. It’s possible to glimpse in that first moment of looking for yourself that there isn’t anything to find. There’s a shift there. With the object you’re looking at, suddenly no longer seems to be over there. Outside of you. Rather, there’s a single condition. Just this openness of consciousness. If you can find that, simply rest as that. For as long as it persists. And in the final minute of the session, just close your eyes and become aware of the breath. Let the breath come and go. Let sounds appear and disappear. And notice that you’re not creating any of this has nothing to do, everything is arising and being known. All by itself. Well, today, I introduced a more precise exercise of looking for what’s looking. Looking for the self, looking for the feeling that we call I and if it confounded you or seemed somehow difficult to do or frustrating. Don’t worry about it. We will return to this, and as I may have said before, you can always repeat these sessions. They’re broken into days, but at a certain point, all of these sessions become evergreen because the full field of mindfulness has been introduced. So please repeat them as many times as is useful.