Then, Bahiya, you should train yourself thus: In reference to the seen, there will be only the seen. In reference to the heard, only the heard. In reference to the sensed, only the sensed. In reference to the cognized, only the cognized. That is how you should train yourself. When for you there will be only the seen in reference to the seen, only the heard in reference to the heard, only the sensed in reference to the sensed, only the cognized in reference to the cognized, then, Bahiya, there is no you in terms of that. When there is no you in terms of that, there is no you there. When there is no you there, you are neither here nor yonder nor between the two. This, just this, is the end of stress.

When one first becomes aware of something, there is a fleeting instant of the clean perception of sensum just before one recognises the percept (the mental product or result of perception) and also before one identifies with all the feeling memories associated with its qualia (the qualities pertaining to the properties of the form) and this ‘raw sense-datum’ stage of sensational perception is a direct experience of the actual. Clear perception is in that instant where one converges one’s eyes or ears or nose or tongue or skin on the thing. It is that moment just before one focuses one’s feeling-memory on the object. It is the split-second just as one affectively subjectifies it ... which is just prior to clamping down on it viscerally and segregating it from the rest of pure, conscious existence. Pure perception takes place sensitively just before one starts feeling the percept – and thus thinking about it affectively – which takes place just before one’s feeling-fed mind says: ‘It’s a man’ or: ‘It’s a woman’ or: ‘It’s a steak-burger’ or: ‘It’s a tofu-burger’ ... with all that is implied in this identification and the ramifications that stem from that. This fluid, soft-focused moment of bare awareness, which is not learned, has never been learned, and never will be learned, could be called an aesthetically sensual regardfulness or a consummate sensorial discernibleness or an exquisitely
sensuous heedfulness ... in a word: apperceptiveness.

(Dictionary Definition: ‘apperceptive’ (a.) of or pertaining to apperception (the mind’s perception of itself).

Thus: ‘apperceptiveness’ (n.): the condition or quality of being apperceptive; also: ‘apperceptively’ (adv.): the experience of being apperceptive and: ‘apperceptivity’: (n.): the capacity to be apperceptive). In that brief scintillating instant of bare awareness, that twinkling sensorium-moment of consciousness being conscious of being consciousness, one apperceives a thing as a nothing-in-particular that is being naught but what-it-is coming from nowhen and going nowhere at all. Apperceptiveness is very much like what one sees with one’s peripheral vision as opposed to the intent focus of normal or central vision. One experiences a smoothly flowing moment of clear experiencing where one is interlocked with the rest of actuality, not separate from it. This moment of soft, ungathered sensuosity – apperceptiveness – contains a vast understanding, an utter cognisance, that is lost as soon as one adjusts one’s mind to accommodate the feeling-tone ... and subverts the crystal-clear objectivity into an ontological ‘being’ ... a connotative ‘thing-in-itself’. In the process of ordinary perception, the apperceptiveness step is so fleeting as to be usually unobservable. One has developed the habit of squandering one’s attention on all the remaining steps: feeling the percept, emotionally recognising the qualia, zealously adopting the perception and getting involved in a long string of representative feeling-notions about it. When the original moment of apperceptiveness is rapidly passed over it is the purpose of ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ to accustom one to prolong that moment of apperceptiveness – a sensuous awareness bereft of feeling content – so that uninterrupted apperception can eventuate.

Sensuousness is the point of contact of a sense object and its corresponding sense door (sight/eye, sound/ear, taste/tongue, touch or sensations/body, smell/nose, thought/mind) before the mental sequence of mental proliferation arises. Attentiveness is paying attention or 'vipassana' (vi=intensifier, passana from passati=to see). In other words, 'attentiveness to sensuousness' is seeing in focused detail the point of contact of a sense object with its corresponding sense door.

Simply recognize that the mind has become aware of these sensations without any effort whatsoever on your part. Simply acknowledge the fact that these sensations are arising without 'you' putting any effort in to perceive them. Effortless natural perception. Simply recognize this fact in real time. When you forget to, just simply remember this fact again. That simple.

but when i ask myself the question, i quite literally breakdown the component parts of what it means for me to be alive in that moment and this might be where my background as a vipassana meditator comes in. i think "right now, in this moment i am seeing ______. i am feeling (as in, literally on the body)________. i am hearing _________. i am tasting______." of course by asking myself the question, the thought function is involved in assessing those sensate experiences and that is where my thought-function is at that moment. by the time i tune into all those components of my existence, if there is some emotional state operating...it is no longer there and there is just the experience of whatever it is. those are the things that constitute my experience of being alive moment to moment, and otherwise, there is nothing else. for me, in feeling the nothing-elsness, i can come fully into my particular time/space experience.

to me it would make the most sense to see to it that those affective or 'being' sensations are treated exactly the same way as every other sensation--no more, no less. no giving special attention or making them the focus, and no ignoring them or skipping over them to maintain felicity. this would best mimic the default panoramic and balanced attention of a being-less existence. if you give them special attention, you lose some of the panorama, and if you give them less attention you might be overlooking important stuff. this sounds like just giving them equal observation time as other sensations, but i also mean treating them with the same equanimity, appreciation, acceptance, non-condemnation, wonder and innocence as sensations of space, sight, sound, thought, touch, etc., so that you're constantly fusing those 'being bits' into the big panoramic sensation soup, whether you're 'pinballing' or chilling with everything at once. it doesn't make a difference if they feel suspended, solid, stuck, still, moving, heavy or subtle. if any sensations of being are there at all, there is some sort of unequal treatment of sensations going on, and that's what you want to de-condition. the more equal treatment, the more stuff gets seen, and the more stuff gets seen, the easier equal treatment becomes.

open awareness wherein there is no focus, there is just - if meditating on the cushion - inherent reception of sense-objects by virtue of having sense receptors. Getting into this may start briefly with being aware distinctly via the "five" sense-faculties which can receive respective sense-objects (breeze, sun setting registering through eyelids and on the skin, distant and close sounds (and to get fussier: distance and proximity are said to be proprioceptive senses or aspects of the sense faculties), etc). Over the course of meditating in open awareness (not noting, not deliberately looking at vibrations, not deliberately studying a single sense-faculty and its registry of sense-objects), perception of senses ceases to be felt as sight or sound or hearing or smell (touch is a little different, in my view as yet, and I attribute this to the broad array of objects the tactile sense encompasses).

look about the world as if absolutely anything could appear
in front of you at any moment, and like if you look away,
you might miss out on something extremely precious. but one
cannot know what's going to happen next ... so don't try
to know or guess; just wonder ... pure, fascinated reflection:
"what does it mean for my life right now if this is all there is?"
in fact, it is always 'here before you know it'. so don't worry
about figuring out how to feel about whatever is happening ...
that's always old news. better instead to direct all of your
energy solely to the senses, by allowing the bright light of
awareness to blaze within and out; everywhere. this is not
going to seem 'energetic' (feeling-wise) ... sensuousness is
more refined and subtle than affect. it is like lighting a tiny fire
inside of every single cell in the entire body. when one is very
sensuous, one may have the thought that the experience is
dense, thick, rich ... one wonders if the mind could be any purer.

Theres this natural resonance in sound that is right at the ear. It's not like i'm hearing something out 'there' wherever 'there' could be, it's all just right here. I'm seeing with the eye, it's not seeing through the eye, it's like I am the eye seeing, this is seeing. It's pleasant, it's very obviously pleasant to just experience what this body experiences, if this body were to experience pain it would also be painful, but this experience here is 'friendly' - for lack of a better word, is safe, is secure, is still, time doesn't move. There's no sense of there being anything abstract which moves, or which i am moving through.

The direct mode of experience is the perfect complement to the filtered mode. To return to the wave metaphor: in filtered mode, you skillfully create interference patterns in the wave in order to observe specific aspects of the wave. This is how jhanas are accessed, for example, and this is how you systematically investigate experience, setting up one part of the mind to look at another. In the direct mode, however, you simply *are* the wave. No interference patterns are allowed.

“Whatever you experience, simply be aware of it. You don’t have to take
after it. The primal heart has no characteristics. It’s aware of everything. But as
soon as things make contact, within or without, they cause a lapse in
mindfulness, so that we let go of awareness, forget awareness in and of itself, and
take on all the characteristics of the things that come later. Then we act out in line
with them—becoming happy, sad or whatever. The reason we’re this way is
because we take conventional truths and latch on to them tight. If we don’t want
to be under their influence, we’ll have to stay with primal awareness at all times.
This requires a great deal of mindfulness.”

The only thing you have to work at maintaining is the state of mind at normalcy — knowing, seeing, and still in the present. If you don't maintain it, if you don't keep looking after it, then when sensory contact comes it will have an effect. The mind will go out with labels of good and bad, liking and disliking. So make sure you maintain the basic awareness that's aware right at yourself. And don't let there be any labeling. No matter what sort of sensory contact comes, you have to make sure that this awareness comes first.

I Clarity of the Senses

Bring the attention to the senses and notice how clear and bright they are, how perfectly they function. The outside world is painted on the canvas of the eyes instantly with such vivid colors, textures, highlights and shadows. This image may sometimes appear dull and uninteresting because of our indifference, but now relish the sensuousness of every tiny detail, like tea drops on a table or a texture of a dry leaf. The clarity of our senses point us to the right direction.

Not trying deliberately to see, hear and feel, but keeping the senses wide open.

II Effortlessness

We don't have to struggle to experience the world with our senses. There is no need to imagine anything. The world appears to us promptly without us having to do anything about it.

Pay attention to sounds. You are aware of ALL the sounds whether you want it or not. The cognizant quality of the awareness picks them faithfully up even if you are not deliberately trying to hear them. Note the delicious quality of directness and effortlessness of the spontaneously arising sense impressions.

Notice how sounds create a whole new virtual space in your consciousness. Just by listening to all sounds with your eyes closed, mental images, landscapes, people and scenes automatically appear in the mind, conceptualizing the experience.

All other senses share this same quality of the perfect spontaneous arising too. Even sensations of discomfort and pain, as unpleasant as they are, appear in similar fashion, instantaneously and magically.

Do not just watch this play of sensations happen, become it. Recognize and be aware of the very quality of wakefulness that is manifesting itself in various forms and that enables the awareness of everything around and within us.

Just like particle physics teaches that potentiality inherent in space-time itself makes it possible for particles to appear out of nothingness, the potentiality inherent in knowingness enables thoughts to be born at any time. The very same exquisite quality of effortlessness and clarity experienced with the sense impressions is present in thoughts also.

Although the mental images and thoughts are normally not quite as bright as sensory experiences, when dreaming or in a state of deep absorption they might be even more vivid and life-like than real life itself. And even if thoughts pale in comparison with the real world, the way they arise instantaneously and manifest themselves transforming the entire mind space for a brief moment before vanishing again, is like a magical display.

The presence itself is not changed by thinking, so you can let thoughts be just as they are.

III Transparent Undercurrent of Knowing

There is something transparent present at all the times, but we are not used to experiencing that. It is hidden right under our noses. This unchanging layer can be identified by the very fact that it stays unaffected by cold, hunger and pain. Even when we are tired, we can still hear all sounds just the same. We can hear our name called even when asleep. That would not be possible if the ever-present wakefulness wasn't doing it's job continuously.

Whenever experiencing unpleasantness or discomfort, search for that part of the experience which makes the perception of discomfort possible while itself not affected by it the slightest.

Looseness, brightness and lucidity of the knowingness are particularly clearly visible right after waking up as the consciousness is gradually turned on in the morning.

IV Abiding as Spontaneous Presence

Once there is solid experiential certainty about the wakefulness, it is quite possible to make it the sole interest of the mind. This means dropping all other fluctuations of the mind and resting as pure knowingness itself, the very quality of our being that remains stainless and unchanging despite the phenomena passing through it.

Rest, keep it loose and no effort is required. When resting like this, undistracted mindfulness happens all by itself. If one tries to keep it using deliberate mindfulness, naturalness is spoiled by turning it into a conceptual state.