One Field of Knowing
Un Solo Campo de Conocer
A gentle practice of moving attention through sensation, sound, sight, and thought to notice the quiet knowing that holds them all.
One Field of Knowing
The simplicity beneath complexity
The simplicity of all this is the trickiest part.
The mind makes everything seem complicated.
We can talk a lot about those intricacies and the dynamics of thought and feeling and emotion,
the energies that pull and how we are attracted
or tempted to identify and contract,
what reasons all of this.
That's one way to work: to progressively clarify and see through
the traps of thought
and the challenges of being with certain sensations,
fear and pain of all kinds of forms.
In some way or another we will have to do that work at some point.
There's another way, which is to just see through the mind completely,
to recognize thought as thought.
In a sense the whole house of cards can come crashing down.
If we see thought as thought, we can no longer identify with thought.
We can't pretend to be something that we see to be not real or substantial.
Foregrounding sensation
So one way to do this, just to put thought into perspective:
just bring your attention to sensation.
As if you were to put everything else in the background,
almost as if to block it out,
but not with force.
Just let sensation be the only thing that comes into the foreground.
Everything that's breath,
skin,
even what's beyond the skin, a kind of tactile sense of the space around you,
pressure of the seat,
itches, breathing.
Notice all tensions, make nothing of them, they're just there,
not important.
Let it occupy all the space.
Turning to sound
And then you can gently just drop that and bring sound into focus.
The sound of my voice and anything in the space you're in,
if it's birds or cars or even the faintest noise of the refrigerator.
The whole world of sound.
Nothing else matters.
Nothing is important,
just sound.
Turning to sight
Now without opening your eyes if they're closed,
just bring into the foreground everything that is light.
Even with eyes closed you can see textures,
the visual field.
Forms and textures, bring the visual field into focus.
Turning to thought
And now you can move into thought.
Let the mind run free.
Let all thoughts just come up into the foreground.
Memories, your life, the past,
all of that history, all of that knowing.
This universe, the knowing of space, planets, society, animals.
All of that knowing; it's the world of thought.
The sense of a future,
what you do being a person,
the struggles,
even emotions that come up.
All of that,
that sense of I being a person.
Notice how big of a deal it is,
how attractive and captivating,
how familiar.
Don't try to find it or stop it, just notice that space.
Turning toward knowing
Now notice the knowing of your experience.
Try to understand it or find its source or location.
Just the knowing.
You are aware that there are sensations.
You are aware that there are thoughts,
perceptions.
There is this knowing.
Within the knowing, all the fields of thoughts,
sensations,
perceptions:
it's all one field of experience.
This knowing is effortless.
You don't need to find it.
It doesn't go away.
It does not depend on anything that's experienced.
No sensation or thought can change it.
It is completely neutral to whatever is known.
No matter what is experienced,
the knowing of it
is completely empty.
No matter how profound the expansion and how deep the contraction,
the knowing of it is completely neutral,
unaffected, untouched.
Just notice the obviousness of it.
It's no secret.
It's not hidden.
It's so obvious it's overlooked.
And it's the most intimate thing.
Immersed in sensation without story
Completely immersed in sensation,
with no thoughts arising,
all of the story, the present, the history, the past, the future,
just sensation, perception,
and the knowing of it. You fully there with nothing missing.
So invite that.
Invite just sensation,
leaving everything else in the far away distant background.
Just the world of sensation,
like a newborn fully into the body.
Cycling through the senses
Now cycle through a bit faster.
Bring all the world of sound,
everything else into the background.
There's a sound and then there's an image which explains the source of the sound.
That image is thought.
Just the mysterious, beautiful texture of sounds,
spontaneously appearing,
shifting, moving, changing.
No distance.
It's just appearing,
not located.
No inside, no outside,
just sound.
Now move into sight.
Colors,
textures.
Not the images of thought,
just actual sight.
Eyes closed or open, it doesn't matter.
The whole visual field is one experience.
Now shift back into thoughts.
The world of I as a person.
The birth,
the history,
the past,
the future,
experiences,
struggles,
emotions.
All of that.
Notice how familiar and captivating it is to focus in that space,
the world of me, the space of me, my story, my life,
the future, me and others.
Returning to knowing
Now, back through thought into the knowing of experience.
That which knows thought, that which knows sensation, that which knows
perception, sounds, sight.
It knows that it knows.
It's a different kind of knowing, not requiring thought.
It is the knowing "I am."
No matter what experience is happening,
no matter what the mind is doing,
no matter what sensations appear,
perceptions,
the knowing is the same,
untouched, unaffected.
It doesn't require thought,
not a story of me.
Free exploration
And now in your time, following your curiosity, explore.
Cycle through:
focusing on sensation,
moving into sound,
sight,
thought.
I am. Sensation.
Sight. Sound. Thought.
Get slower.
Get faster.
Foreground and background each experience,
and clarify that it is all one field of experience,
thought being just one flavor.
Don't stray. Explore.
What is the resistance and the habit
of the space in the world of thought?
Patience.
Thought as imagined perception
Thoughts are imagined images,
imagined sounds,
concepts,
time, space, others.
Drop that. Move into the knowing of experience. Effortless.
No conditions.
Whatever is experienced is known.
The knowing depends on no particular experience.
Infinite.
Mysterious.
Minds can come. Minds can go.
They're irrelevant.
Feeling the space of attention
Sensations.
Feel the space, the attention.
Sounds.
Feel the space, the attention.
Sight.
Feel the space.
Thoughts as the feature which knows all of this.
One field of experience.
Everything changes,
everything moves.
Not a single thing is stable or fixed,
except for the knowing of it.
Empty knowing.
Knowing without distance.
Knowing without location.
It knows time; it's prior to time.
It knows space; it's prior to space.
Simple and benign.
Loosening the sticky bits
Never stuck. Thoughts just cycle through.
All the senses,
and rest more abidingly: I am.
But in the world of thought and perspective,
notice the sticky bits,
the magnetic temptations
to be stuck in certain sensations or certain thoughts,
certain spaces.
Playfully you can cycle through, quickly or slowly,
just loosening the sticky bits.
Resting in the knowing
The knowing. I am.
Now just do nothing.
No direction.
Just let anything come up.