SENSE AND SENSIBILITY

  Can you remember an occasion when you were totally relaxed, perhaps lounging in the garden on a fine day, doing absolutely nothing – you put the book down for a moment and just looked at the garden.

You were doing something very good for you. But because of our lifestyle, doing nothing is suspect. You put the book down; but maybe you could allow ‘just looking’ only for a brief moment.

Here’s a little meditation exercise I call Sensing. It’s a way of getting more in touch.  It’s a great little pick-me-up if you are feeling a bit caved in or if there seems to be nothing else but work.

All you do is take a few minutes off and just sense the environment like an animal. Just stay with the environment for a short while….. look at it…. Don’t think, LOOK. Look around and see things. Feel the solidness of things. Actually feel their THERENESS  – their REALNESS… their weight and solidity, colour and shape – the walls, the floor, the table, the bookshelf, the windows and so on. Look at each thing in turn and get its realness.

Then, try getting the reality of, not just parts of the room, but the whole room at once – walls, floor, ceiling, everything. Have the lot in one go.

Sensing is easier to do while going for a walk, away from home. This is because everything in the home tends to send you a message: fix me, attend to me, clean me. It’s as though every household item issues a requirement, an order.

 There is no doubt that there are abusive houses that treat their owners abominably and keep them in a condition of semi-slavery, overworked and unappreciated !

Jesting aside, the truth is that we have lost our animal sense of connection with the environment. The planet and our bodies suffer from this neglect. Animals do not function well unless they are connected with the natural world; and the natural world suffers if we are not in touch with it.

Sensing is a way of recovering our animal senses. You can do it for a few minutes in your room. Get the walls, floors and furniture as real, solid, eminently THERE in their form and colour. Consider it time out for a few minutes meditating. Particularly get things as physically solid. Get the movement of the trees outside the window, anything that moves as well the solidity of the furniture. Move your Sensing around the objects in the room and through the windows. Have what you see. Keep it up for 5, 10 or 15 minutes

As I say, Sensing is easiest to do when outside walking. The constant change of perspective alters everything as you stroll and helps keep your attention engaged. Stay with what you sense each second. Have everything you see. Keep looking around at things. Don’t’ think – look. Keep it up, no matter the temptation to drift away into thinking. As you walk notice how perspectives change. Each moment yields a completely new aspect. Keep your looking fresh. The earth, the sky, the grass, each tree. Each moment look at things freshly – the first time you look you get the THERENESS of things. Make every look the first time.

I’ve done this at times in my life when I’ve been stressed out; and believe me, it starts to make difference in a few minutes. Your surrounding take on a new body, fuller, clearer and more colourful; the grass is greener and the sky bluer, like someone cleaned the windows – it will give you energy and the pressure of stress will lift.

If going for a walk normally makes you feel better, you are probably doing sensing anyway; maybe it’s what you do naturally when you go for a walk; and why you do it. But if you are a bit stressed, or too much in your head, it may help to do sensing intentionally.

This is why holidays are so vitally important. It’s not just the change of air, but the change of scene. You do more looking. And it’s why when coming home after a holiday the house feels kind of strange. You are experiencing your home minus the ‘do-me’ signals. For a while the house seems familiar, yet unfamiliar. Everything stands there just as it is, without the command signals.

Sensing People: here’s another good exercise. Sit in a public place, a park, a square, or a mall and just sense people as they go by. (Not somewhere too crowded or where people are in a rush). Take them in one at a time – have each person.

You will have seen people doing this naturally in the park and other places. It’s what they do with their spare time. It’s good not just for loners or losers. It does something for the psyche. Whenever I have done this I have had a night of dreams with lots of people in them. It must nourish the psyche’s populousness. It’s definitely not a waste of time.

For those of you who have had some experience with focusing, try sensing the environment while at the same time getting your inner bodily felt-sense. It’s quite a novel experience.

contact: stanrich@vodafone.co.nz

(03) 981 2264