The Simplest "Exercise" of Searchlessness
Allowing state to arise and dissipate, and so discovering the recognition of the nature of states.
The basic "exercise" is to allow state to arrive, change, and leave of its own accord.
Consider the three manipulations of sensation that form the foundation for perception:
1) Amplifying or emphasizing sensations
2) Diminishing or de-emphasizing sensations
3) Setting aside/putting aside sensations
Relax these activities.
That may seem like all the possible things one could do, and so an impossibility.
Exactly.
Just as one relaxes muscles by the via negativa of releasing the activity of tensing, not by a via positiva of “relaxing” as an activity in itself, so it is with the relaxation of the existential essence of doing,
This is not an end in itself, but a basic preliminary exercise to discover the blank canvas on which sensation is available (not mandated) to be:
1) Amplified
2) Diminished
3) Set aside
as a constructive, creative act of responsiveness.
Thanks for the exercise. It’s a bit unclear to me how setting a sensation (3) aside is different from maximally de-amplifying it (2). There’s something about a qualitative gap between the question of whether a sensation is present in awareness at all vs the question of, if it’s present, how intensely salient it is?