Sight-Sensation Correlation Exercise
1. Close the eyes and hold up one hand.
Pay attention only to the felt sensations ‘of the hand’.
2. Open the eyes, and now observe the hand by looking only.
3. While looking at the hand, pay attention to the felt sensations.
Repeat this as many times as needed and be really curious.
Normally we believe that the sensation is coming from the sight, the ‘object’ seen as hand, but if you look, is there any link between the sensation and the sight?
In other words, is the sensation ‘coming from’ the sight labelled as hand or only thoughts and mental constructs link them?
Can you see that both the ‘visual sight’ and the sensation appear simultaneously but ‘separately’, meaning that none of them is coming from the other or contained by the other?
So they just appear equally, ‘beside’ each other without any hierarchy or link between them?
You can repeat the exercise with some other body part.
2 Comments
It’s interesting that with eyes closed and a hand moving freely ‘through space’, there is actually hardly any sensation, and what sensation is there seems eclipsed by the idea I am moving my hand through space. The story the brain is telling is a seduction that obsures what is actual.
An excellent description of experience. ..and seduction is right!