During recent meditation somehow I stumbled into observing the sensation on and around the head. I was trying to find out how the senses affect the head at a physiological level i.e. does the input from the senses cause any activity in the head which can be felt at the level of senses. Since I had closed the eyes the most active sense at that moment was hearing. I came up with some interesting observations. First of all I didn’t notice uniform activity around the head. I didn’t notice much activity on my right side though the sound source was closer to the right ear. I observed sensation on front, top, left and back side. The area adjoining the back to top and left side seemed more active. The most interesting observation was the activity towards the back of the head and it seemed it was in response to prior activity in the other part of head. The outcome of this activity on the back seemed to be resulting in psychological thought. Interestingly observing this sensation would cause the resulting thought to dilute or die in the middle or not happen at all. Later continuing this process would cause very little thought and only sensation. This was startling since this would seem to be a definite way to silence the mind.
I continued with my observation for few days and came up with the theory that these sensations can be divided in two parts: Sensation on the back of the head and sensation everywhere else. It seems the sensation everywhere else act as an input to the back of the head. The resulting response (thought) from the back causes the sensation on the back or head (Now I don’t know which one occurs first the thought or sensation). So it occurred to me that mind is nothing but a complex request response mechanism. There are multiple stimulant and it has a way of coming up with the response. Now knowing the myriad inputs and power of senses it would seem impossible to stop our senses and hence our mind. Now senses are meant to serve important roles in our life. But for the mind it would seem difficult to understand that it does not need to generate response for every sensory input that it gets. May be this is the reason for continuous stream of thoughts.
I kept observing this phenomenon for few days and these observations lead me to realize that there is a very important part of our body which acts as a link to our head. That is back side of the neck. All the input and output to our mind from the bottom part of our body would have to travel through our neck and it seems this part plays very important part in this. I would feel some discomfort in this part whenever I have any thoughts. Just adjusting this so that the discomfort is gone or observing this would reduce or completely eliminate the thought. I tried this in my meditation and observed that my mind would be alive with no thoughts if I don’t have any discomfort in this area. This seemed like a sure shot way of reaching silence in meditation or anytime else. It’s not just this part but the back, shoulders, hands and everything else plays a very important part in the way the sensation is perceived in this part. And somehow if this part is relaxed it seemed the mind was lot quieter. It would seem this part is an important link in transmitting the sensory input to the mind.
My observations explained the response of the input from the bottom part of our body but what about the upper part? It would seem if I could find one or several places which were similar it could explain the way to quite the mind completely. I am not sure if there is only one point in the head. But it seems easier to observe the sensation on the head. Normally there are only a few areas. In one or two places, I could feel very subtle pain. Observing those areas seemed to help a lot in reaching a quiet mind. I have to continue investigation the top part for more concrete observations.
There are two important conclusions I drew from these:
1. We are nothing but puppets of our senses. It’s like a computer, given an input it comes up with the output. The input is coming all the time and so does the output.
2. There is some entity in the system which has the ability to see all this play. It seems it is not thought, it’s a silent observer. It can see this play going on. Somehow this observer is very concrete in the meditation.
So maybe the key to understanding ourselves is through our senses, through the various sensations in our body and mind. Buddha said this long time ago, maybe I am discovering the truth in it.
I continued with my observation for few days and came up with the theory that these sensations can be divided in two parts: Sensation on the back of the head and sensation everywhere else. It seems the sensation everywhere else act as an input to the back of the head. The resulting response (thought) from the back causes the sensation on the back or head (Now I don’t know which one occurs first the thought or sensation). So it occurred to me that mind is nothing but a complex request response mechanism. There are multiple stimulant and it has a way of coming up with the response. Now knowing the myriad inputs and power of senses it would seem impossible to stop our senses and hence our mind. Now senses are meant to serve important roles in our life. But for the mind it would seem difficult to understand that it does not need to generate response for every sensory input that it gets. May be this is the reason for continuous stream of thoughts.
I kept observing this phenomenon for few days and these observations lead me to realize that there is a very important part of our body which acts as a link to our head. That is back side of the neck. All the input and output to our mind from the bottom part of our body would have to travel through our neck and it seems this part plays very important part in this. I would feel some discomfort in this part whenever I have any thoughts. Just adjusting this so that the discomfort is gone or observing this would reduce or completely eliminate the thought. I tried this in my meditation and observed that my mind would be alive with no thoughts if I don’t have any discomfort in this area. This seemed like a sure shot way of reaching silence in meditation or anytime else. It’s not just this part but the back, shoulders, hands and everything else plays a very important part in the way the sensation is perceived in this part. And somehow if this part is relaxed it seemed the mind was lot quieter. It would seem this part is an important link in transmitting the sensory input to the mind.
My observations explained the response of the input from the bottom part of our body but what about the upper part? It would seem if I could find one or several places which were similar it could explain the way to quite the mind completely. I am not sure if there is only one point in the head. But it seems easier to observe the sensation on the head. Normally there are only a few areas. In one or two places, I could feel very subtle pain. Observing those areas seemed to help a lot in reaching a quiet mind. I have to continue investigation the top part for more concrete observations.
There are two important conclusions I drew from these:
1. We are nothing but puppets of our senses. It’s like a computer, given an input it comes up with the output. The input is coming all the time and so does the output.
2. There is some entity in the system which has the ability to see all this play. It seems it is not thought, it’s a silent observer. It can see this play going on. Somehow this observer is very concrete in the meditation.
So maybe the key to understanding ourselves is through our senses, through the various sensations in our body and mind. Buddha said this long time ago, maybe I am discovering the truth in it.
Great investigative work on the workings of the mind. Two things that I learn from this & a little exploration from my side
ReplyDelete1. The all parts of the brain can be activated if we ask the right question. Every part is tuned to answer different sets of questions. Same question gets a different answer when is asked to a different part of the brain.
2. A stage of thoughtlessness is still a conscious stage where brain is active & someone is watching all the fun :)
Further,
I have seen and experienced that cessation of thought is the first step towards the a stage that gives you the most promising hint that we exist beyond our material existence.
From my personal experience, Chanting Om at this stage of thoughtlessness, , though not necessary, seem to expedite the transition of awareness to that stage.
Look forward to share notes when you reach there.