Arc 3 · Liberated Form · Lesson 10

Appreciating the senses

Three short experiments — color, sound, touch — preceded by a sit to clear the ground.

An android discovers disgust

Before the practice, a brief detour into Star Trek. Data, the android in the next clip, drinks something for the first time and finds himself disgusted. He then proceeds to appreciate the hell out of it — because the felt sense of disgust, met without the usual move to push it away, turns out to be interesting.

The clip is a small demonstration of the kind of appreciation Arc 3 is pointing at. Notice that what he appreciates is not the drink. It's his own reaction to it.

Five minutes of Opening Awareness

Before the appreciation exercises, sit for five minutes of Opening Awareness. This is the practice we built across Arc 2 — letting whatever arises be there, without grabbing at it, without pushing it away. The point of doing it now is to relax the habitual conceptual overlays a little, so that there's more room for whatever the senses turn out to be doing.

Find your seat. Eyes can be open or closed, whichever you prefer for this practice. Begin when you're ready.

A note before the exercises

In each of the next three exercises, be available for appreciation to arise — but don't try to manufacture it. Don't force it. Sometimes appreciation will be present; sometimes it won't. Sometimes the felt sense will spontaneously show up partway through, and that moment of arrival is itself worth catching. It won't arrive at all if you're working hard to make it appear.

A short guided meditation

Press play and listen. There's nothing to do during this — just receive these as descriptions of what appreciation can mean.

Appreciation is being glad for however you feel. Appreciation is savoring what you enjoy about being alive. Appreciation is embracing the experience of disliking something. Appreciation is being moved when you recognize that something is totally irrelevant to you. Appreciation is relishing how your response to what is happening continually changes. Appreciation is reveling in the patterns you find in your reactions, and delighting in the surprise you feel when those patterns change.

Exercise 1 — color

Two minutes. Look around your visual field and notice the colors. Appreciate how you feel about each one — however that is, and however it changes over the two minutes. If you're color-blind, notice the gradations in hue.

For the next two minutes, look around. Notice the colors that are here. Notice how you feel about each one. The feeling doesn't have to be anything in particular. Let it be what it is, and let it change.

Exercise 2 — sound

Two minutes. Listen to whatever is happening around you — close, distant, mechanical, biological, the room itself. Appreciate how you feel about what you hear, and how that feeling changes.

For the next two minutes, listen. Whatever sounds are here, are here. Notice how you feel about them, and let that feeling be what it is.

Exercise 3 — touch

Two minutes. Fold your hands over each other and feel your skin touching your skin. Notice the air moving across your skin, the temperature of it, the small variations. Appreciate what's happening in the tactile sense, however it is, and however it changes.

For the next two minutes, fold your hands and feel your skin against your skin. Feel the air moving across your hands and arms. Notice the temperature, the texture. Let your appreciation be whatever it is.

Where this is going

Color, sound, touch — the easy cases. Next we'll take appreciation into territory where it doesn't naturally arise: arranging objects on a table, watching strangers speak into a camera. The point is that appreciation isn't reserved for the things we already like.

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