Sensory Contact

(The Practice of Divine Presence: 1)

Our senses operate continuously, but our contact with them wavers. Our eyes may be working perfectly well, while our attention is far away, travelling down some memory lane. That is where training comes in, widening our awareness to continue seeing in this moment, even while remembering another. Contact with our senses means seeing what we are seeing, hearing what we are hearing, knowing what we are thinking, feeling what we are feeling, and so on. Training ourselves to live in contact with our body, mind, and heart, as well with the world around us, makes possible the further stages of the practice of Divine Presence.

Broad-based, inner and outer sensory contact gives us stability in the vast world of our senses; we are not so easily swept away by a single sensory stream. Thoughts, for example, regardless of how alluring or alarming they are, have less pull on us if we are grounded in our whole body, our feelings, and our surroundings. With that grounding, we are less likely to be pulled entirely out of the present moment to be lost in some self-perpetuating train of associative thoughts. Memories and thoughts come to us in the present, along with everything else in our senses. We work to open our attention and our awareness to the whole present. This matters, because the Real, the Sacred, can only be found through the present.

Instead of the intermittent and partial contact with our senses that is the ordinary way of living, we intentionally practice a more continuous, durable contact. Our body is always in the present. So we begin with our body and the practice of sensing: putting our attention into our body and keeping it there. We might start with our dominant hand, putting our attention into the hand and holding it there. Gradually the sensitive energy begins to collect in the hand, making it more vivid, perhaps with the fine vibrations of that energy. We move into sensing other body parts, then larger body parts, then the whole body. We avoid sensing inner organs, like the liver or heart, so as not to interfere with their instinctive working. Instead, when it comes to sensing our torso, we simply cultivate an overall sensation of it.

Our interoceptive sense tells us what is going on within our body and is part of the information we convert into perceiving our emotions. Our mind sense puts us in touch with the state of our mind, such as the arising of thoughts and mental images. As we work to simply see what is happening in us, including our thoughts and emotions, we start to be more objective about our associative thoughts and reactional emotions. Sensing our body keeps us in the present. Over time, all these reactive emotions, all the anger and criticism, the anxiety and fear, the jealousy and envy, the avarice, lust, and gluttony, the whole catastrophe begins to settle down to a healthy level. Same effect on our associative, self-generating thought patterns. We need thoughts and we need emotions when they are useful. What matters is that we recognize them as part of the present, and not allow them to transport us out of the present or interfere with our ability to live in contact. Remarkably, when our reactive emotions and associative thoughts do settle into the present, the underlying peace and joy, and the underlying clarity of mind are revealed.

This practice of present awareness of our body, mind, and emotions, widens out to include all of our outward-oriented senses. We let the whole visual field enter our awareness. Even when we need to focus on something, our peripheral vision maintains our perception of wholeness. Similarly, we let the whole soundscape engage us. We let the aromas, the tastes, the textures touching our skin, the whole sensory field enter us. The Divine is an indivisible whole, and the perception of wholeness leads us toward the Divine.

Wholeness applies to all of our senses, individually and collectively. Our senses complete each other, yielding a broader picture, a broader engagement, and a broader contact with the reality in which we live. In opening to all of our senses, inner and outer, we come into our personal wholeness, which leads toward the greater whole that is much more than personal.

This is the first stage of the practice of Divine Presence: contact with the whole through our senses.

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