try comparing sensations

Try comparing sensations coming from within the body with sensations triggered from outside the body.

Normally, we tend to regard ourself as separate from the rest of the world, from the rest of existence. And this separate individual is associated quite strongly with the physical body, as well as our mind. In this little exercise, we're going to challenge that assumption that the physical body is separate from the rest of existence. And to do this, we're simply going to pay attention to our senses.

And in particular, we're going to bring awareness to sensations that are generated within the body, and also to some sensations coming from outside the body, to see if we can find any significant qualitative difference between these sensations.

To do this, it's good to find a place where you can be alone, not socially engaged with other people. And you can try this exercise in any posture: sitting, standing, even moving around if you like. It's good, though, to do it with the eyes closed. This is because the sensation of sight is rather problematic. It really reinforces the sense of an outside and an inside – that separation. So it's easier to get a feel for what this exercise is pointing at if we use other sensations, with the eyes closed.

So having closed the eyes, try first to find some sensations within your own body. You might like to scan through your body, looking for any aches or pains, or any nice sensations within the body. You might bring the awareness to the stomach. Is there a feeling of hunger there; or perhaps, if you've just eaten, a feeling of being full? There are a lot of nerve endings in the stomach area and the gut, so it's usually quite easy to find some sensation there.

Having found some sensation in the body, bring your full awareness to it. Try to feel the quality of that sensation. How do you relate to it? Can you bring all your awareness to the sensation, so that you become that sensation? Or perhaps you feel rather separate from it, as if you are looking at it from a distance. It doesn't matter how you perceive it. The point is to really bring your awareness to it and feel it.

And after a few moments of being aware of an inner sensation, move your awareness to a sensation that you regard as coming from the outside. This might still be the sensation of touch: for example, where your body is touching the ground, the feeling of pressure. Or you could move your sensation to one of the other senses: the sounds, or the smell, or the taste in your mouth.

Whichever sense you pick, bring your full awareness to it. And again, feel the quality of it. I'm not talking about the content as such, if I may use that word. If your awareness is resting on what you are hearing, it's not important what the source of that sound is. It's not about identifying it. We want to have the general feeling for hearing, the sense of sound.

Bringing your full awareness to one of the senses in this way, does it really feel outside you? This is the question.

When I do this exercise, the feeling is exactly the same for these sensations that are nominally coming from outside of myself. It's the same, as those sensations coming from inside of myself.

Of course the particularities of what I'm sensing will be different. Just as I have a different feeling in my stomach, depending on whether I am hungry or full. But the relationship, if I can put it that way, with the sensations, is just the same. The generic quality of the sensations is the same.

And I can be absorbed into any of the sensations. I can disappear into the sounds. Or alternatively, if I'm just watching the sensations, as an awareness separate from the sensation itself, I can do that with either the sounds coming from the outside or the feeling in my stomach. It's exactly the same.

So, trying this little exercise is really a way of seeing for oneself, that as far as the senses are concerned, as far as perception is concerned, there is no difference between the outside and the inside; between what is not me, and what is me. That separation comes into our mental thinking when we want to act and control things. But that's a later stage. When we are merely perceiving, bringing awareness to sensation, there is no separation. There is no me and not me.

If you get good at this exercise, you might like also to try it with the sense of sight. For some reason, with the sense of vision it's a little bit more difficult to feel what we are seeing as being on the inside, or to relate to it in the same way. But it is possible with practice.

And of course, from a merely technical point of view, it's clear that everything we are sensing is via our nervous system. So it's bound to have the same generic quality, regardless of whether those nerve signals are being triggered deep inside the body or in the peripheral organs of sense.

Now the rain is coming down, deliciously; time to say, namaste.