2.1. Open Awareness
Having got to know each sense individually, now let's explore how they all work together in a natural way.
It's sometimes called open awareness, but this is a slight misnomer. In a way, it's actually more like a closed awareness because you only ever experience these six domains of sense experience, which are a closed system. There is nothing experience-able outside that system. But within these very hard boundaries, anything can happen, so it's open in that way.
One analogy is of a closed-circuit TV system. There are six channels, the eye channel, ear channel, nose channel, tongue channel, body channel and mind channel. But on each of those six channels, there is a vast range of possible experiences.
It's sometimes also called choice-less awareness, another misnomer because attention is making choices about what to attend to every single moment. Not being aware of your choices doesn't mean that they are not happening. Nevertheless, understanding the limits of language, we shall continue with these names.
Ancient roots of open awareness
Some may think that these are modern terms, but there's actually a very ancient canonical basis for open awareness. In the tenth sutta of the Satipaṭṭhāna Saṃyutta, the Buddha describes two modes of practice.
The first mode is called paṇidhāya bhāvanā, mental cultivation while directing. It applies when, while meditating, some severe discomfort arises in the body, or the mind is completely sluggish, or one is distracted externally. Then the mind should be directed towards some pasādanīye nimitte, a mental image which inspires confidence, until the mind has regained its composure.
The second method is called apaṇidhāya bhāvanā, mental cultivation without directing. It applies when a meditator knows that their mind is free, unconstricted, not directed externally, and the meditation can continue without any forceful intervention.
We will explore these two modes of practice in more detail later on.
The practice of open awareness
The basic idea is very simple: you don't decide what to experience, for example, the breath. You let attention choose experience for you. Attention naturally moves from sense to sense, from channel to channel, often faster than you can keep up with, but it has kept you alive for this long, so it's clearly doing its job well.
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As you see the words on this page, just know, "this is seeing", or "this is the eye channel".
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As sounds make contact, just know, "this is hearing", or "this is the ear channel".
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As some smell becomes apparent, just know, "this is smelling", or "this is the nose channel".
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As you taste food and drink, just know, "this is tasting", or "this is the tongue channel".
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As bodily experiences come to your attention, just know, "this is physical sensation", or "this is the body channel".
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As thoughts and mental states become prominent, just know, "this is mental experience", "or this is the mind channel".
For the purpose of progress in this meditation on saḷāyatana, it is recommended to note the field of experience, rather than the objects of experience, "eye channel" rather than "tree", "bird", or "monkey". The purpose is to condition yourself to clearly differentiate between the different fields of experience., and slowly recondition the mind to perceive in a new way.
Let your attention move naturally between these six fields of sense experience, as they have been doing as long as you've been alive. All that's being added is continuous knowing of what is already happening.
Follow each experience from the moment it arises, observe the changes until the moment when something new comes up, and the previous experience disappears. There's nothing to do except follow experience as it move from one sense to the next, one sense to the next. Try and keep up, experience moves fast!
The Pāḷi word for this is anupassanā. The prefix anu- adds the meaning of 'following', or 'being right behind'. The root √dis / pass means 'to see'. The -anā suffix creates feminine abstract process nouns. So the word anupassanā literally means 'the process of follow-seeing'. Dhamma-anupassanā, of which the six sense fields are a part, literally means 'the process of follow-seeing experiential phenomena'.
With practice, it is possible to turn this from a simple exercise, into a strength, into a power, into a superpower, into a bojjhaṅga, an element of awakening. This simple exercise is aimed at nothing less than cultivating sati-sambojjhaṅga and dhammavicaya-sambojjhaṅgaṃ, mindfulness and investigation of phenomena as necessary elements of awakening.
What this is not
Let's be very clear about what you're not trying to do here.
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You're not trying to control experience.
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You're not trying to exclude some experience.
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You're not trying to have some special experience.
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You're not trying to stop thinking and have a perfectly peaceful mind.
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You're not trying to experience bliss or rapture.
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You are not trying to achieve some altered state of mind that you've heard about or read about.
Many of the above are side effects of meditation, some might say unwanted side effects of meditation, not the goal of meditation.
For now, you're just trying to know what's happening, that's all. It's an excellent exercise to see what the mind is really doing most of the time.
Meditation on open awareness
Transcript
First, as a warm-up exercise, let's spend a few minutes going through each sense field, so that you can clearly differentiate each field of experience from the others. Open your eyes. See whatever you are seeing. Just know this is seeing, this is the visual field, this experience is coming through the eye channel. Your ears are always open. Hear whatever you are hearing. Just know this is hearing, this is the auditory field, this experience is coming through the ear channel. Take a deep inhalation. Smell whatever you are smelling. Just know this is smelling, this is the olfactory field, this experience is coming through the nose channel. Taste whatever is in your mouth right now, if nothing is in your mouth it will just be the slightly salty, sometimes bitter taste of the inside of your mouth. Just know this is tasting, this is the gustatory field, this experience is coming through the tongue channel. Feel whatever sensations you can feel in the body. Just know this is physical sensation, this is a bodily experience, this experience is coming through the body channel. Turn your attention towards your mind and know whatever mental phenomena are occurring. How are you feeling today? Just understand, this is a mental experience, this is the mental field, this experience is coming through the mind channel. It's helpful in the beginning to spend a few minutes clearly differentiating the six fields of experience. Now that you've done the warm-up, it's time for the real exercise, which is open awareness, knowing whatever is happening as it is happening. The best thing about this practice is you don't need to do much, you simply need to pay attention to what is already going on. Instead of choosing which sense field to pay attention to, know whatever is occurring naturally. Attention normally moves between the senses, from seeing to a sound, to a sensation in the body, to another sensation in the body, to a thought, to another thought, to a memory, and so on. Your job is just to know whatever experience is present right now. --- Calmly follow whatever is happening as attention moves from this to that sense field. Your job is to follow closely behind and know whatever is happening. There's always some naturally occurring experience. Give your full attention to that. --- If you're walking, the primary experiences are going to be seeing, hearing, smelling, body sensations and thinking. If you are sitting with eyes closed, your primary experiences are going to be hearing, body sensations and mental activity. --- Keep your attention on naturally occurring experience. Keep following experience from one sense to the next. --- The biggest thing that will pull you away from the experience at hand is thinking, and not knowing that you are thinking. It is natural to start thinking, there is nothing wrong with thinking, the mind forms thoughts all the time. But your job is to know what is happening, so when thinking, you must *know* that you are thinking. The *usual* case is you are completely involved in the story of a thought, it is *unusual* to know that this is thought. So when thinking, catch yourself, know, "Ah! This is thinking!" and come back to sense experience. --- Notice how when you start thinking, all the other sense fade into the background and the thought story takes the spotlight, front and centre in the mind. Your full attention is on thinking, not knowing that you are thinking. At the time, your eyes are open, but you are not seeing. The world is full of sounds, but you are not hearing. The body is full of sensations, but there may as well not be body. Know that thinking is just a mental experience, it happens on the mind channel. And come back to following naturally occurring experience. --- Keep knowing whatever is happening. Keep following experience as it happens. --- Don't expect perfectly continuous awareness. This is a skill to be developed slowly over time. Do the best you can. It's so helpful to know that you're no longer paying attention, only then can you bring your attention back to the senses. Don't try to force any kind of experience to happen. Just know what's naturally occurring. The only thing that you're adding is awareness. Other than that, let things unfold as they do. Don't get frustrated if it seems difficult in the beginning and you keep losing awareness. That is also a normal part of the process. Keep knowing whatever is happening. Keep following experience. --- The most vital skill in the beginning to catch the mind when it wanders off. Just to know that it has wandered off, that is now folly engrossed in a mental story, oblivious to all other experiences. This is the most useful gift that you can possibly give yourself. It will really help you to come out of the deeply ingrained habit of getting totally absorbed in your own stories, and not even knowing that it's a story. Come back to the experience at hand, come back to your senses. --- Keep following whatever experience is happening. It happens, and you're right behind it with awareness. --- Following whatever experience is happening, watching it appear, morph and be replaced by the next experience. Attention naturally moving to another sense, a new experience arises, changes and disappears. Your job is just to keep following this naturally occurring process. --- This is how to train attention, how to make attention powerful, discriminative, tuned into the most subtle changes and, most importantly, continuous. --- What's happening?Q&A
Q: I've been noting something incorrectly. Have I made bad karma?
A: Knowing what's happening is much more skilful than being unaware, which is the unskilful state that most people live in. And knowing that you've been wrong is much more skilful than being wrong and oblivious to the fact that you're wrong. So what you're describing is a natural part of progress.
Q: Do you have any questions or doubts at this point?