One of the most basic meditations is to notice and allow. Notice what’s here in this field of experience. Allow it as it is.
IMPERFECT NOTICING & ALLOWING
If we try to notice and allow, we’ll find that we can only do it approximately. Even with our best effort, we fail in doing it very well.
There is a beauty in that failing. It points to something else.
ALREADY NOTICED & ALLOWED
What’s here in this field of experience is already noticed and allowed.
It’s already noticed by the awakeness it’s happening within and as. (This is the ordinary awakeness that’s always here, that any experience happens within and as.)
It’s already allowed.
INTENTIONAL AND REFLECTIVE NOTICING & ALLOWING
Any intentional noticing comes after this original and inevitable noticing.
Any intentional allowing comes after this original and inevitable allowing.
ORIGINAL VS INTENTIONAL NOTICING & ALLOWING
There is already a perfect and inevitable noticing and allowing of what’s here in this field of experience.
Any intentional noticing and allowing comes after in time, even if it’s just a few milliseconds.
Any intentional noticing and allowing is imperfect. It’s inevitably partial and approximate.
Just like perfection is built into the original noticing and allowing, imperfection is built into any intentional noticing and allowing.
DIFFERENTIATING OUR NATURE VS THE FORMS IT TAKES
That’s how it should be. It points to an essential differentiation.
Our nature – what this field of experience happens within and as – has an inherent perfection.
Our human nature – with this psyche and these senses – is inherently messy.
WHAT WE REALLY ARE
What I fundamentally am is what instantly notices and allows what’s in this field of experience. I am this awake space forming itself into all content of experience, including any sense of an observer, doer, me, I, and any sense of identification with and as that or not.
I find that this exploration – first failing at noticing and allowing, and then noticing the noticing and allowing already here – helps me differentiate what and who I am. It helps this awake space (what I am) notice itself as this whole field of experience, forming itself into this human (who I am) with his psyche and body and relative slowness.
It also invites a shift of the center of gravity from the second to the first.
ORIGINAL VERSION
This is from the February notes in my Amritapuri journal.
I find it fascinating to notice how what’s here – this field of content of experience – is already noticed and allowed.
It’s already noticed. It’s noticed before there is an intentional or reflective noticing. That one comes after. It’s noticed by this awake field that is my whole world and what I am, and which forms itself into all content of experience.
It’s already allowed. It’s allowed before there is any intentional allowing. It’s allowed in a completely and inherently unhindered way. Any intention to allow comes after, and is less perfect since it’s colored by the preferences of this personality, and any habitual pushing and pulling from the psyche.
It helps to notice this. Nothing needs to be fabricated. It’s just about noticing what’s already here, and aligning a little more consciously with what’s here.
This also helps me notice the difference between what’s built into what’s here and what comes after. What’s built into what’s here is pure noticing and allowing. As Douglas Harding says, I am built open for the world. What comes after is any intention to notice and allow, which is mixed in with respectively distractions (attention gets absorbed into stories with a charge) and pushing and pulling (wanting to hold onto some content of experience and get rid of something else).
It’s a way to notice the difference between what I am and who I am. This awake space and this human self and his psyche.
Here, I like to do this on the beach, or sitting in the big hall when there is no event, and sometimes other times.