The process of "feeling" and our sensory organs
THE WAY OUT IS WITHIN –
Welcome you to part two of my blog series from my meditation course. Our topic has been how to be in touch with yourself and find the way out of the conditioned mind. (Here is the link to the first blog: https://drzsu.blogspot.com/2023/09/how-can-being-connected-to-your.html)
Have you seen this
sentence: THE WAY OUT IS WITHIN?
Do you know what does
it mean?
What does WITHIN mean?
WHAT and HOW should
you watch or observe specifically when you go within?
What is the REASON you
should chose that specific focal point?
What will you get as a
RESULT if you do this specific task?
My
intention today to bring you answers to these questions.
The
source of my blog is the litarally mindblowing knowledge from Buddha’s original
teaching on the Study of mindfulness in the Satipatthana Sutta and my
direct experience having gone through 3 of the Satipatthana meditation courses. My deep gratitude for the numerous interviews with the assistant teacher of the course Ma'am Shubha.
As it became very clear for you from my first blog:
https://drzsu.blogspot.com/2023/09/how-can-being-connected-to-your.html
Feelings and sensations are your answer to
what you have not understood yet about your mind.
So when you look within,
you should be
1.
aware of your ordinary
physical body sensations and
2.
observe them objectively.
3.
letting go of your clinging
to them –
4.
Knowing their nature of arising
and passing and therefore selflessness (your feelings
and emotions are not you)
The reason
why your mind can drive you crazy with your emotions now is that you
just don’t know the above points. You have never learned it at home and in
school.
No matter
how old you are, this is the right time for you to learn.
Decode your mind finally and break out of your old
not-serving habitual reactions, angers, doubts, cravings, depressions and restlessness is a lot simpler
than you ever thought. Because The way out of your mind is through your sensations.
Let’s learn more about our sensations: The sense organs
We have six sense organs which connects us to the world. That
is our eye, ear, tongue, nose, body and mind.
Every one of these sense organs are a portal to
the outside world. Through these sense organs we receive information from the
outside world. These sense organs are the windows to the world. Every one of
these organ has its own faculty of awareness.
The mind is your sixth sense.
The mind is a very special sensing organ.
What is the sensing process?
Your mind can feel everything in your body
coming through the sense
organs: picture, sound, smell, taste, touch.
The mind can:
1.
recognize,
2. perceive,
3. decide if what you sensed is good or bad and
4. create a reaction to it.
What else can the mind do?
The mind can generate sensations from it’s own as well.
These sensations are awakening from are our emotional
imprints (in Pali language Sankaras.)
So your mind is a very special feeling-sensing
organ. The mind senses the outside world and it creates sensations as emotions
all by itself through your emotional wounds and emotional imprints.
The mind uses itself to sense, evaluate and react
to the emotions it created for you.
The mind being contaminated, clogged up by your past experiences
/emotional imprints, is doing all this work through the emotional imprints. The
experiences right now you live is not being sensed by your so called „right
mind”. The contaminations, your emotional imprints, or your defilements took
over your mind and running your blindly.
Can you see how your clogged up mind can suck
you in and drive you crazy?
Your defilements, emotional imprints destort what
you see, hear, taste, smell, touch.
Your defilements make you believe something about
your experience what they want you to believe.
You defilements blocks you to see the truth.
The defilements link your present experience to
a previous experience and immediately qualifies it good or bad; pleasure or
pain. Then gives you an immediate reactions: I like it – so I want it (craving);
I don’t like it – so I don’t want it- it I hate to live with it (aversion).
Your clogged up mind – the defilements -- immediately
start an automatic process of recognition, perception and reaction of
the external expereinces and internally generated once—and keeps you in misery.
What is the way out?
If you want to stop this cycle of your defilement
clogged-mind sensing, perceiving, reacting to the outside and inside the world
you have to come out of your mind.
Coming out of your mind made emotions means:
1. become
aware of your mind process and
2. shift
your focus to body sensations
3. observe
them objectively
4. keep
refocusing smoothly while you stay relaxed
I wrote about the importance of being relaxed
in my previous blog. If you stil have not read it, I highly recomended it so
you really understand what I am about to say.
AGAIN:
The way out from your mind is
through observing your body sensations objectively.
Your emotions are mind created or it’s a
reaction to the outside or inside the world.
All these emotions are linked to a physical
sensation or feeling. These physical sensations, feelings can be: a spasm in
your stomach, nasusea, tightness or pressure in your chest, tension in your
head, sneezing, congestion, thightness in your neck, sharp pain in the hip,
back or knee, numbness in the hands and feet. Any kinds os sensations anywhere in
your body.
Why you can sense these body feelings today?
1. You can’t sense your ordinary body sensations because
your mind keeps you
busy by driving you crazy by continuously keeping
you in your mind reactions.
2. Secondly you suppressed so much emotions as a
form of tension in your body that your whole body is tight, tensed, stressed and
numb, which is unable to feel your body sensations except if it’s a great pain.
So in order to get awareness of your body
sensations—notice your body sensations-- you must relax first. Only when your
body is relaxed can it start noticing your tensions and all other body
sensations.
Only when you are relaxed can you start to observe
body sensation.
If you are tight, tensed, you can only sense
gross painful sensations. And your meditaion will be about observing your
pains.
Staying relaxed to all experiences allows you to
note – become aware of -- small and smaller body sensations, which are also linked
to your emotions.
When you are observing large painful body
sensations objectively, you are cleaning out your aversions, and hatreds from the
emotional-defilement level.
When you observe your smaller „pleasant” body sensations
objectively, you are cleaning out your cravings-related emotional imprints-
defilements from your mind.
What do we get by staying with our body sensations?
Let us recap
what we have learned so far and take it further.
·
Your mind creates your emotions which actualize
in body sensation.
·
The mind with its tricks, can create imaginary
sensations for you. These can be pictures, sounds, taste, smells, touches
feelings on your body and your mind-made thoughts .
·
The mind can only focus on one thing at a
time so it either keeps you in your mind in your emotions (keeping
you thinking) or it feels your body sensations. When you areness is sharpened
you will noticed this. So to enter into the Satipatthana course why you
need to have 3 vipassana courses and serve one course and keep daily practice.
All this practice allows you to get you tot he next level of awareness and
equanimity – objective observation.
·
If you are not aware of your body sensation,
your mind immediately laches on your focus and takes you in the past
unforgivenesses or your future fears.
·
At this point you worked hard to let your body
open up and you to sense all other smaller sensation. Youre awarenss is sharper.
Now you start using your awareness to REALLY feel your body sensations. Feel them
100%. Immerse into them. Be one with them. And not go to your intellect, your
mind to feel your body sensations and to create a report about your sensations.
Your mind will give you a destorted evaluation about your sensation anyways.
Now you also know this.
·
It is customary to consult wit the mind, to our
intellect to make sense of our body sensations or our emotions so we stay in
our minds.
·
However we have a perfect faculty – our awareness
– which can observe objectively these body sensations and by which the
universe sends us messages.
·
If you stay aware of your sensations without
consulting your mind and observe your body sensations objectively --you will
always stay in the present moment and know what to do. You will always know how to
do something, when you shall you do it. You will always know what to say, how
to say it, and when to say it, because the universe will guide you on the right
path.
·
As a result you experience your inner flow of
peace, loving kindness, and compassion. All this comes naturally. All these
vibrations of love - Dhamma is in you. Now that you managed your mind- your
defilements- Dhamma is flowing in you.
This is what it means to be Universally guided. Being in the
flow of Dhamma. Cleaning your mind makes the world a better place for you and
for all those connected with you.
May we all keep growing in Dhamma and live in joy, peace, and free
from our minds.
Metta,
Dr. Zsuzsanna Fajcsak- Simon
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