Sensitivity

One of the main practices of meditation is to investigate experience. We calm the body and mind so that we can become aware of how they interact with each other. Then we can observe the interactions between the inner environment and the outer environment. With each question, a new space for understanding opens up.

When developing sensitivity, we can go further than asking questions in the form of words, sentences and thoughts. We learn to open up to experience and its many qualities without the need for constant descriptive feedback. We look at how things are more directly, in a questioning that is deeper than our expectations about how things are. Rather than starting with a hypothesis, sensitivity aims at just expanding the awareness of what is really happening, of how we really function, of what is available and what are our limits.

In Buddhist psychology, there is great emphasis on the role of kleshas, which are normally translated as emotions. Kleshas are the mental reactions to experience which cloud our sensitivity. The main starting point for the emotions is the constant push and pull of craving and aversion. Craving and aversion develop into different forms. A more refined list of kleshas include attachment, anger, jealousy, pride, and ignorance.

These mental events create a veil over our awareness of how things are. Experience takes the colour of each emotion. The senses become dull and our judgment becomes biased. Confusion takes hold of our actions, creating further conditions where this cycle can continue developing.

Being sensitive to these emotions, we can gradually include them in our understanding of experience. Understanding how emotions work gradually helps in being able to observe experience as it is. We are not stuck with the superficial layer of emotionality and can go deeper into the workings of being.

Sensitivity can start through the senses. They are the gates to experience. You can try to notice when your senses are dulled down because you have too much in your head, or because you have a certain emotion taking hold. Your eyes go fuzzy, sounds don’t really have importance, food doesn’t taste of anything, smells don’t tell much and muscles go tense for no reason.

Then calming the mind and body down, you can open up the senses widely. All the different textures, colours, distant and close sounds, all the subtle smells, the different sensations of the skin and muscles, all the taste buds can be opened up. When you take a walk with open senses, any place becomes much more interesting, more exciting. You discover the richness of experience through the senses.