Mindful Sensing

As we peruse the perfections or paramīs, we are looking for entry points to mindfulness practices that may suit us right now. The third precept is “I undertake the training rule to refrain from misconduct with sexuality (or sensuality)”, and although this usually proceeds with a conversation about how to avoid harmful actions and words having to do with sexual energies, today we’ll think about some of the other ways that our senses can lead us astray if we’re not mindful.

All the time, we are choosing where to place our attention. We are driven by the desire for pleasurable sensations and experiences. If we look at the subset of pleasant mental sensations, this is the category in which we spend the most time.

• What music do we listen to by default?
• What do we read on a daily basis?
• What visual inputs are we drawn back to again and again?
• Do we regularly devote some time to silence and stillness?
• What work do we do (paid or unpaid) and what is our state of mind while working?
• When we reminisce or project into the future, what’s the content and emotional quality of our memory/daydream?

All these activities can be done with or without mindfulness, habitually or because we’ve consciously chosen them. If we are attending to the wholesomeness or unwholesomeness of the inputs we choose, we will be continuously re-evaluating our selections. As one wise teacher said, “Let go of those activities that no longer serve”.

There’s no magic to this process, it’s very mundane, but without mindfulness we are just drifting from one sense pleasure to another, or in some cases, to a particular pain, as if picking at a scab. We could become addicted to gratifying one or more of our senses. Some of us are seduced by reading and will drift in that direction unless focused on a task. Others cannot put our phones aside and give attention to our surroundings unless there is an emergency. Some folks feel compelled to work all the time, neglecting other people and opportunities. A compulsive meditator is rare, but it does happen.

We must each take our own inventory, honestly acknowledging what our drivers are and questioning whether they are wise. Are we moving in the direction we want to move in?