Thread: DawgBone's Dream Yoga Workbook (Digital Ashram)

Basic Skills, Lesson #1: Sensory Awareness Meditation

"A meditation in which you become hyper-aware of the real physical world around you. This class of meditation involves developing an awareness for how your brain is always limiting and filtering the sensory stimuli that actually ends up being perceived."

Version 1: Listening to a Noisy World

Level 1:
Sitting at my computer desk, I close my eyes and move around my environment with my sense of hearing. There is a crow cawing in the backyard. There is a mockingbird in the bush by my window. A truck passes the house out front. My fan makes some low-level white noise. Occasionally a jet passes overhead. I am also softly playing a CD. It is not one sound, but a whole constellation of different parts: vocals, drums, bass, guitar, etc.

Level 2:
I'm going to concentrate on the CD. When listening to a song, I usually mostly hear the lyrics. But songs have multiple parts. We probably focus on the lyrics because words have informational content. But I'm willing to bet that a drummer clearly hears the drum part, and a bassist focuses on the bass line. A technician mixing the parts together would have to hear ALL the parts simultaneously, without bias. That is what we are striving for. We are learning to produce a mix of our sensory environment.

I add the individual parts one at a time. This is tough! The lyrics demand the most attention, but with effort I can simultaneously hear 3 or maybe 4 parts. I bet Bach could hear 8 or more parts simultaneously. I can't. But this is a technique "to be practiced for years." I listen to a lot of music and will make this mediation a regular part of my listening.

Level 3:
I jog some, so I will try to listen to my foot falls and listen to the environment as I run. The sounds will include my own breath, birds singing, wind blowing past my ears, cars passing in the street nearby, in addition to the sound of my foot falls.

I usually run for about 40 minutes. I'm wondering how long I will be able to sustain simultaneous perception. One minute? Five minutes? I will probably start and stop multiple times, hopefully getting better each day.


Homework for Basic Skills: Lesson #1

My own version of this meditation will be a combination of version 1 and version 2. I will listen and feel while I am jogging. There are countless physical sensation when your run. Your lungs are working hard. Your heart is working hard. You can actually feel your pulse in different parts of your body. You can feel the thump of your heart and the bellows-like action of your lungs. You can feel and hear your foot falls. You can feel that soreness in you Achilles tendon. You notice the small pain in the small of your back. You feel your body slowly warming up. You begin to sweat. Your muscles begin to work more smoothly as you warm. Your pace becomes more efficient and natural as you get into a groove. Etc, etc.

Combining even some of these sensations with the many sounds of the environment will be a real challenge. I will start with maybe two sounds and two sensation, adding more as I become more skilled.


This is a terrific lesson, I think. Right on target and very exciting!