What appreciation means
The word "appreciation" is going to do a lot of work in this arc. It's worth being careful about what it means here — and what it doesn't.
Welcome to Arc 3
Arc 2 explored spaciousness — the open room around an experience, and a sitting practice (Opening Awareness) that helps it become more available. Spaciousness relaxes the habits of seeing that crowd out a fuller way of meeting the senses.
What that fuller way of meeting the senses opens onto is what this arc is about. The original course called it vividness, and the doorway in is appreciation. Across the next four lessons we'll feel out what appreciation actually is, practice it across the senses, look for it in places it doesn't seem to belong, and then learn a meditation called Moving Awareness that supports the whole thing.
A heads-up on pacing: this session has more meditation in it than any session before, and more than any session that comes after. Plan accordingly.
The wrong kind of appreciation, first
"Appreciation" usually means finding something positive to say about a thing, even (or especially) when you don't feel it. A kind of cognitive overlay, divorced from any felt sense.
To get a feel for what we are not doing in this arc, watch the next clip and actively look for what you might say positively about it. Try to find the silver lining. Compose a little internal essay about what's nice here. Two minutes.
That kind of effort is what most people mean by "trying to appreciate something." It's a useful thing to recognize because we are not doing that in the rest of this session. If you noticed yourself reaching for a phrase, or hunting for a positive frame, or feeling like you should manufacture a feeling — that's the move we're going to set down.
What we mean by appreciation, here
The appreciation we'll be working with isn't about finding silver linings. It's closer to seeing the world with fresh eyes. It's a quality of receptivity to the present moment — and because the present moment is never the same twice, no two experiences of appreciation are identical either.
Appreciation in this sense is not one thing. It's a way of experiencing, characterized by:
- Curiosity — being interested in what's actually here, rather than checking it against what you expected.
- Gratitude — not the performative kind. The simpler kind that arises when you notice you're alive to a sensation.
- Enjoyment — including the enjoyment of disliking something, the enjoyment of being moved by something irrelevant, the enjoyment of being surprised by your own reaction.
Notice that none of those require the situation to be pleasant. The thing being appreciated doesn't have to be enjoyable. It just has to be met without the habitual layer of unseeing that we explored in Arc 1.
Sometimes appreciation arises in places you wouldn't think to look for it. A challenging conversation. The smell of something rotting. A long wait somewhere boring. Once the opportunity is recognized, those moments often turn out to be easy to appreciate — but only because you stopped trying to make them be something else first.
What's coming
Three lessons follow. Lesson 10 walks through appreciation as it shows up in three senses — color, sound, touch — preceded by a short Opening Awareness sit to clear the ground. Lesson 11 takes appreciation into territory where it isn't obvious: rearranging objects on a table, watching strangers speak. Lesson 12 introduces Moving Awareness, the meditation that makes all of this more available, with six short scaffolding exercises and a short practice.