"All form (feelings, perceptions, formations, awareness) whether past, present, or future; internal or external; gross or subtle; ordinary or unordinary; near or far: all form (...) should be seen as it actually is, with clear comprehension in this way: 'This is not mine, I am not this, this is not myself'." SN 22:59 The Buddha.
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Meditation 44-51 develop higher levels of nirvikalpa samadhi, until at will, you can disentangle awareness from itself, to bring cessation to all sensory fields.
Meditation 44-51 develop higher levels of nirvikalpa samadhi, until at will, you can disentangle awareness from itself, to bring cessation to all sensory fields.
This practice is tied in with what the Buddha called indriya-samvara (calming of the going-out of awareness to the senses). This whole process is done through gradual relaxing of all sensory engagement, until this tendency for awareness to engage, ceases.
It is important to note, that this final stage requires significant fading and uprooting of the meditative hindrances, especially in regard to habitual attraction and aversion towards vedana (pleasant and unpleasant feeling tone).
Therefore, basis in samadhi, insight and softening are required.
The five sense fields are the doorway between our awareness and the world. The world that we know can only be experienced through five doorways: sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. These five doors are always present.
The experience of the doors is always right here, right now. Any of these five doors can be used during seated mindfulness meditation, and they can also equally be used during everyday life. Because these five doors can only be experienced right now, the experience of them is an anchor, a reference point, to the present.
While the mind travels between three different realities - the reality of the past, the reality of the present, and the reality of the future - the experience of our body and the experience of the five sense doors can only be experienced in the present.
So, using them during formal meditation training and for mindfulness in everyday life - literally coming to your senses - will anchor you in the present, anchor you in reality, protect you from the ups and downs in life, and provide an anchor for training the mind.
During meditation for example you can the sense door of smell as an anchor. Because smell is always present, you can use incense or oil to bring you into presence. You begin your meditation by being aware of that sense of smell - without commentary, without thinking about it.
While holding presence within your body, it anchors your awareness, it holds you right here right now. And it dissolves past and future.
You do not need to understand what a sensory experience is or where it is or how it is that it came to be. As a meditator when being mindful of any of your senses, what is important is two things:
Observing your relationship towards the sense experience. The true importance of sensory experience such is: Sensory experience is always present, here, now. Attraction and aversion are found in relationship towards sensory experience.
Once you can be aware of the five sense fields, you can then shift your attention towards the sixth sense field, mind. What you will start to notice is that mind has its own sensory input, and functions in the same way as the other five sensory fields.
Seeing experiences that arise within the mind as just sensory data, will allow you to separate the awareness of these experiences, from the experiences themselves. You will then be able to make the awareness that arises with each sensory contact, your object of meditation.
This process of being aware of being aware, will allow you to notice the relationship between the present awareness, and the sensory object. You will then be able to apply your softening skill to the relax the habitual 'going out' of awareness to its object, dissolving habitual attraction and aversion.
This leads to a calming of the functions of the mind and a disentangling of awareness from sensory experience. With repeated practice, awareness is conditioned to disentangle from the sensory fields, and the tendency towards habitual attraction and aversion, fades.
During this meditation your focus is on being mindfully aware of different experiences within your six sense fields and learning to clearly differentiate between awareness of that object, and awareness of awareness, as a first step in disentanglement.
In this meditation, you change your focus from experiences that arise within the field of awareness, to the observation of awareness itself.
To do this you withdraw your attention from external objects and become mindful of mindfulness itself by focusing on 'remembering to remember awareness'.
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Step 1: Sit in meditation.
Step 2: Establish mindfulness of your body as you sit in meditation.
Step 3: Bring awareness to the flow of breathing within your body.
Step 4: Bring awareness to the sensory input within your five sense fields.
Step 5: Bring awareness to the experience of awareness itself.
You are ready to progress to Insight 29: Mindfulness of Seeing when:
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