5 Underrated, Hard to describe parts of Meditation
Meditation weirdly feels like a game sometimes, where every once a while or with the right teaching, a new "Skill" is unlocked that opens up a whole new area to explore and play with.
Some of these feel really weird and abstract to explain, I wonder if others can relate to some of them or even try them out based on these descriptions?
Zooming out, Noticing the Sense itself:
Instead of feeling something, paying attention to "The Felt Sense". Instead of seeing, paying attention to "The Visual Sense".
Easiest to first try with vision - Look ahead, and without moving your eyes at all, focus on the edge of your peripheral vision.
Attention can move independently of sensory apparatus, so try to widen it as much as possible, focus on the entirety of your vision instead of any object. Let attention relax, like all of your vision is just one cohesive painting, no objects or borders.
Worth trying with physical sensation and sounds, too! Smell and taste might be more concentrated, but also an option?
With physical sensation in particular, maintaining attention on the ENTIRE felt sense can be very very useful for meditation, relaxation, emotional processing, and simple enjoyment. Happiness and peace are felt in the body!
Breathing into body parts / emotion:
May seem like a basic technique to some, but easily the most approachable and universally USEFUL one.
What does it mean to "breathe into your toe" like some teachers suggest? Obviously air stops at the lungs, right? but the flow in the body-sense / attention doesn't!
Directing attention in a flow from nostrils to throat to torso to any body part that is aching, dull, or needs more energy can have a surprising effect, whether this is just psychological or has some physiologic effect of releasing tension.
Breathing out "from" that area can help too - can try either channeling the breath (and whatever tension you want to release with that breath) through the lungs and out the mouth or nose, OR can try to imagine the air coming in and out DIRECTLY from that area, then flowing through the body.
This is just a really great relaxation technique for tension, especially when there's an EMOTION felt in the body! Breathe into the emotion to open it up, give it space and calm, then let some of the emotion get carried out with exhalation. Probably THE most mundanely useful of these, saved me a whole lot of unneeded pain and conflict.
Absorption / Opening up to experience:
This one is based on Rob Burbea's teachings - this movement where you "open up" fully to an experience, ABSORB the sensation into you more intensely or with less resistance / obstructions. Can feel like having a sensation in the hands and going INTO that sensation, deeper and closer, or maybe feeling the entire body and opening up the floodgates, letting that sensation fully envelop, consume, or fill you.
Might feel gradual at first, but with practice and repetition can feel like flicking a switch and suddenly sharpening the senses!
Can turn a minor meditation moment into something amazing. Very fun to do out in nature too, feel like you absorb the environment with all the senses!
Distance, movement in thoughtspace:
Similar to above, Angelo Dillulo wrote about playing with the distance we may feel we have towards a thought, or thoughtspace itself. Diving deeper into a thought, almost like looking at a "solid" cloud from the outside but going so deep into it that all you see is "cloudstuff", formless. Or trying to look at thoughts from far away, a distant and unaffected observer.
Fun way to do it is imagine you're "consuming" thoughts, letting them go into "you" or encompassing them inside yourself, letting them fall into this mass of growing awareness and focus in meditation, not just staring at them like at a screen. Intimacy with the EXPERIENCE of thinking rather than the content of thoughts!
Noticing the unaffected part of experience:
Odd one that may not always feel available, but it's a bit like listening to the silence that encompasses, holds, or allows noise.
Or when there's a strong physical sensation, feeling how a part of attention ITSELF is unaffected by any sensations at all.
Can feel like noticing the noticing capacity itself, the space that holds experience, directing awareness towards its source or "container", or towards some ineffable quality that isn't quite part of the sense-field or sense objects, a kind of stillness that is always present.
Many meditation techniques may lead to this.
All of these get much easier AND more intense with practice, and can really open up interesting experiences, powerful meditative states, increased focus and relaxation, or just a lot of fun!
Sometimes it's nice to just have that ability to play with the senses / consciousness idly, always available no matter the situation.
Would love to hear other ones you've experienced, other names or descriptions for these based on your methods, or what these feel like for you if you've tried them!
Let me know if there are any questions or things to clarify, too.
