The whole-sensory body

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When there is awareness in the space between the mind and the body (breath, hands, the oral cavity, the heart area, the pelvic floor), subtle, energetic sensations emerge. These dancing energies lead us to consciousness.

The body has a certain object-like quality, for it seems to be external to the mind. The mind has the impression of having a body. It relates to the body like a driver does to a vehicle. The mind seems separate from the body as the subject is separate from any object. In consciousness, the body-as-object dissolves and is recognized as form dancing in energetic spaciousness.

The body, being perceived as the seat of the mind, has at the same time a subject-like quality: when we say "I", we point our index finger at our chest. The body is experienced as an extension of our subjectivity. However, it is not the subject but consciousness itself that is manifested through the body. The body can therefore be recognized as the whole sensory organ of consciousness. Through the body, life is listened to. In the open sensitivity of listening there is open awareness from the whole body - without memory, without expectation, without intention, without interpretation. There is no listener listening. Then there is only listening. We can always return to listening - without doctrine, methodology or technique. There can be listening in the space between listener and sound.

In consciousness, the body is neither object nor subject. The body is form as all phenomena are; at the same time the body is consciousness.

Energy is the subtlest form felt in the whole sensory body. It continually shifts and moves around. Energy appears on the stage of consciousness in the form of pure well-being dancing in every cell of the body. An awareness of this subtle pleasure, this vibrating joy, naturally leads us to consciousness.

From the subject-object position, the senses are employed by the self to grasp, to pull, to fix, to consume, to cast into the mold of its own frame of reference. In so doing, form is made into an object. The sensory nature of experience thereby disappears into the background. We can listen to the non-listening of the mind which is bound up in subject-object relations. Thus, non-listening dissolves into listening, as darkness dissipates into light.

In open sensitivity, there is no one grasping. By becoming no one, we open our senses to all of reality. When there is touch, there is no one touching anything. There is simply touching as such, that is touch with all our being. The same is the case for seeing, hearing, smelling and tasting. Through each of the senses we can come to awareness.

In awareness, the duality between subject and object falls away.

Subject and object return to form-in-consciousness. Everything arises and perishes in consciousness.

Any instant of awareness brings us to our original state in which there is only consciousness and its manifestations leading us back to consciousness.

Consciousness reaches out, touches the world and brings all back to its original nature. In this act of love, all reality returns to the tri-unity of form, energy and consciousness.