This is a meditation technique, or inquiry to realize the non-dual nature of your mind.
So this is a technique, as in it's something you can very obviously apply in your meditation
practice, and it's also an inquiry. Something which might demand you to be more active in
your meditation, investigating, than you might have otherwise previously thought. The technique
or inquiry is to see if you can hook your consciousness or your mind or your experience onto
an object or sensation of meditation. By object or sensation it could be whatever object or sensation
you usually use to meditate. For some people that's the breath, for some people that's visual
objects, for some people that sound. To make it simple today the example I will keep referring
back to will be sound. Sounds my favorite object. And the technique or inquiry is to see if you can
notice just that sensation. Take the time to make sure you're comfortable and still, because
usually when we're moving about we have all our regular associations of distraction and self.
So the stillness can really help us discern what the present state of our mind is. It can help make
it easier to find the nature of consciousness, the non-duality we're searching for. So find a
nice comfortable stillness you won't need to adjust throughout the session. Take a moment
to settle and rest without expectation, without predicting or, or craving a result. And start to
become aware of the chosen object. I'm starting to become aware of sounds. And within that stillness
try to discern what it means to just be aware of that object. You can check in in many short
moments, that'll probably make it easier to be clear about what it means to be aware of that
object, and you can also try longer moments, in case you think you're not doing anything at all.
Might become easier to notice the distractions if you do longer moments too. And what we want to try
to do is unhook our conceptualizing thinking mind, unhook mindlessness, and for very brief moments
see if we can hook onto the experience of that sensation. Ahat does it mean to just perceive
your object of meditation? For their just to be sound, for their just to be the visual object,
for their just to be the whatever else that you're meditating on. Short moments of attempting to get
that clarity, and longer moments too, so it's a technique but it's also an inquiry,
something you can actively try and figure out. Trying to capture the nature of mind,
discover non duality, with our whole experience, with our whole life going on, just regularly
that can be quite challenging. So what we're doing here is we're making our conscious experience
nice and small, we're picking an object, just focusing on that, then it gets easier to discern
what it means to be present with that object or distracted. Hard to do in our regular lives so we
pick a singular object like the sound. What is it to just know that sound? It's not something
you'll know conceptually it's an experience. Is the experience of the object the same as
thinking about the experience or trying to hold on to the experience? What is just the
experience of the object? The fact that it is an extension of our experience is the great insight
of meditation. And be carefree with this, that's just an inquiry. The nature of your conscious
experience is already non-dual, but normally we're not very present so we don't notice it.
By picking a singular object and tuning into it, and hooking into just letting that sensation be
rather than doing all the other things we normally do, the non-duality can become obvious. It reveals
itself. If we manage to achieve that stillness of just experiencing the sensation of the object.
Uncontrived, no conceptualizing about it, certainly noticing it not being absent-minded,
just letting it be. How could there be separation from an experience. If there's no
thought and you're truly there for it then isn't non duality obvious?
Just a few moments here now, I become still.
I just let that sensation of sound be there.
Thoughts come in, of course they do, back to that sensation.
I try, I grasp, I try to cling to that. I want to hold on to it.
Those are just more thoughts. Letting it go, just being with a sensation of sound.
Done in short moments it's a lot easier to not become absent-minded with this
particular practice. See if you can hook into that sensation and sustain it. If you
can sustain that awareness the non-duality will be very obvious, good luck with that practice.