Withdrawing the senses

[Sloppy Zhang]

So cruising through books or the internet, I always came across references to withdrawing the senses, doing it in certain ways or certain steps, etc. Never really paid much attention to it because my practice wasn't there at the time.

 

These days, I've felt a very strong urge to "pull into myself", as it were. That reminded me of the whole "withdrawing the senses" thing. So when I tried to go back and look up info on it... I couldn't find anything! Ain't that the way it always goes?

 

Anyway, any links, resources, books, websites, experiences, teachings, etc, with regards to this part of the practice would be very helpful. I'd prefer something Taoist, because that's mostly what I practice, but I figure other things are helpful as well, which is why I posted it in the general section

 

Thanks all!

[Creation]

In yoga they call it pratyahara. From the different things I have read, this can mean everything from simply not paying attention to sensations and instead concentrating on the object of meditation, to quite literally turning the senses off completely. Or rather, unplugging them from the gigantic processing machine that is the mind.

 

For information and instructions on the latter, check out Mark Griffin's podcasts Pratyahara Kunda 1-5 and Condensed Pratyahara 1-2

 

He recommends a specific energetic technique to accomplish it, which I did not have the skill to perform the times I tried it, but perhaps you do. Lots of great stuff in there regardless.

 

Perhaps you would care to share some of the methods you have come across?

Edited February 25, 2012 by Creation

[Sloppy Zhang]

Perhaps you would care to share some of the methods you have come across?

 

Well the thing is they were more like things I saw in passing, and thought "I don't need this", so I never saved them or remembered them.

 

Then I was like "I need some of that now, I think" and tried to remember what they were/where I found them... and then I couldn't!

[Nanashi]

I've heard good things about the sensory deprivation tanks... although it would be costly to install and maintain one in your own home, there are a few places where you can use it for an hourly rate.

 

Joe Rogan on the virtues of an isolation tank:

 

[thelerner]

Rawn Clark made a meditation that nicely captures the idea of sealing the senses. Its called the Center of Stillness Meditation. It has you place your 5 senses plus thought and emotion into spheres that circle you. Pretty neat and its free at abardoncompanion.com.

 

I've done isolation tanks a few times. Never got as far into it as I'd hoped.

 

Michael

[Phosphor]

I explained it a bit in another post here,

 

http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?/topic/22642-kundalini-progress/page__p__323205__fromsearch__1entry323205

 

Pratyahara is both a meditative state as well as a waking state. After the nerves in the body have been cleansed, the energy can start moving in the spine. This withdrawal of the energy from the external nerves (and senses) into the spine is what causes this state of withdrawal. After much meditative practice, you will start to see changes when moving about in the world. You will not react as much to things that once bothered you. You will gain control over your emotions and thoughts. This is all a part of pratyahara and the detachment which is comes about as a side affect of it. When you can withdraw your energy from the body, and emotions, and mind, you gain a great deal of potential within that will allow you to break through blockages in the spine and make progress. Eventually this force will become so great, and the magnetism upwards so strong that it will pull your consciousness out of your body into your true Self. Really, you could say that all of meditation is just varying degrees of pratyahara as you withdraw further and further into your true nature.

[Marblehead]

Hey Sloppy!

 

Do a search on "Mindless Meditation" and "No-Mind Meditation".

 

I think this might be what you are looking for.

[Harmonious Emptiness]

Adding to what has been said above, the 5 senses are often called the "5 thieves" in Taoism largely because they allow distraction and thus dispersal of focus, thus dispersal of energy. One trick I've used when having to walk to work through a financial district was to "see through the ears, hear through the nose, smell with the skin, and feel with the eyes." This can also mean a "one taste" non-dual sort of one-sense, but if you switch your primary use this way then it's easier to avoid distraction from sense stimuli.

 

If your senses flare up every time some cute girl sits down in front of you, you might realize how little your focus is being directed inward. In fact, suppressing the urge to check a girl out and putting that energy inwards can enhance the focus even stronger, like she enhanced your practice just by sitting in front of you. I wouldn't use that as a pick-up line though...

[joeblast]

Withdrawing the senses - the physical root of what this is...is attenuating the firing of the Cranial Nerves. The 12 thieves It is how anapana is able to calm. I dont know this for a fact but I swear the good harmonization of the breath structures almost gives the impression that when a good resonance of such is established, it feels like the attenuation of the signals to the vagus nerves reflects back upon the rest of the cranial nerves. (vagus also controls the palette, responsible for voice resonance...gyuto anyone? )

 

 

I'll also toss out the concept of nei shi gongfu again - "the gongfu of internal vision" - "looking down the nose" imparts just a slight crossing on the optic nerves (or at least how the sense data is processed) and allows one to more effectively "look within." So my best lower dantien work has always been with the dantien just barely in my lower field of vision, there being "no focus" to the vision, sorta like when you pay attention to something in the peripheral of your vision and do not put the center of visual focus upon it.

[z00se]

Hey Sloppy!

 

Do a search on "Mindless Meditation" and "No-Mind Meditation".

 

I think this might be what you are looking for.

 

Yep i think so too.

 

Even though i've read withdrawing the senses too, i think it should be more of a binding of the senses. The 5 senses bind together so that none of them are seperate from any of the others and this thus becomes your experience - all as one. The end of duality

[Harmonious Emptiness]

Seems my earlier statement may have misled a bit judging by a PM question, so I'll clarify what I meant here by "see with the ears, ...".

 

What I meant was changing the priority of senses in a way. Normally we pay attention to our surroundings with the eyes first and the other senses will pick up on stimuli if they are engaged by an external stimuli. The practice I'm talking about is basically re-ordering the priority of senses.

 

Normally walking down a busy sidewalk we have to look around frantically to avoid bumping into people. This actually depletes the spirit as does over engagement of any senses, according to Taoist theory.

 

So what I sometimes do is change the priority of senses. I'll keep my gaze down near the end of my nose and more "feel" with my eyes rather than looking around. I'll open up my ears the most so that I am intentionally engaging them more than the other senses (when the sight is turned down there is a lot more to be heard). Doing this, I can hear people coming and get a sense of the rhythm of the sidewalk and manage to be in the right place at the right time and not walk into people (since I'm still "feeling" with the eyes to a degree).

 

The nose is not used much, but when you use your nose like you normally do your ears (in terms of active engagement) then you can pick up a lot of things that normally go unnoticed. This doesn't have a huge amount of purpose, but it does help with the "vipissana" mindstate a bit in noticing more things around me without becoming "engaged" by them.

 

Then feeling is normally very subtly done by the skin which can pick up energy vibrations, possibly even levels of stress and emotion are picked up by our pores and small hairs on our skin. So the skin in a way "smells" the environment, and when the other senses are engaged differently, this sense can be turned up a bit as well.

 

So the overall effect is that the senses are not grabbed by shocking stimuli and thus are more governed by the person rather than by outside influences. At the same time, our more subtle senses are more engaged and so we become more aware of subtleties in our environment.

 

I'm not actually sure if I came up with this or not, but normally that phrase (see with the ears, hear with the nose, smell with the skin, feel with the eyes) refers to a "one-taste" way of experiencing the world so I may have done something else with it, though this practice is probably nothing new really.. I'm sure it exists on some level in vipissana or even ninjitsu.

 

Also, the main reason for doing this is to allow inner concentration and focus in the midst of otherwise overwhelming (or unimportant) environments.

[humbleone]

 

So the overall effect is that the senses are not grabbed by shocking stimuli and thus are more governed by the person rather than by outside influences. At the same time, our more subtle senses are more engaged and so we become more aware of subtleties in our environment.

 

Also, the main reason for doing this is to allow inner concentration and focus in the midst of otherwise overwhelming (or unimportant) environments.

 

great post.

 

my issue is somewhat similiar, information overload. being subjected to voluminous amount of data at work. most of it unimportant.

 

i think your idea of re-directing the senses is quite innovative. seeing by the ears.

 

I tried a quick visualization. so the information flows from the computer screen directly into the ears

 

this visualization actaully has a interesting effect. a lack of emotional involvement. a detachement sense of observation.

 

may experiment with adding other senses, like skin etc to catch as you write 'subtleties in our environment.'

 

good stuff, all the best.

[dwai]

So cruising through books or the internet, I always came across references to withdrawing the senses, doing it in certain ways or certain steps, etc. Never really paid much attention to it because my practice wasn't there at the time.

 

These days, I've felt a very strong urge to "pull into myself", as it were. That reminded me of the whole "withdrawing the senses" thing. So when I tried to go back and look up info on it... I couldn't find anything! Ain't that the way it always goes?

 

Anyway, any links, resources, books, websites, experiences, teachings, etc, with regards to this part of the practice would be very helpful. I'd prefer something Taoist, because that's mostly what I practice, but I figure other things are helpful as well, which is why I posted it in the general section

 

Thanks all!

 

Ime, sense wirhdrawal will happen if we set up the right conditiond for our practice. Right diet, right time, right location and right intent. When a full sene withdrawl happens i have lost sense of self...ending the session i have had dofficulty remembering who i was and where i was. No thoughts...till i had to force them to restart...

[Ish]

I've found this to be good training, in the Stillness-movement when i'm practicing well external noise that may "shake up" the energy usually is not affecting me, though this is still something that i'm working on.

The stability gained from this also goes through into the rest of life where i feel more in control of emotions and my state of being.

Very good!

[Harmonious Emptiness]

Well, maybe we'll start a new phenomena of detached crowd slipping...

[z00se]

Ime, sense wirhdrawal will happen if we set up the right conditiond for our practice. Right diet, right time, right location and right intent. When a full sene withdrawl happens i have lost sense of self...ending the session i have had dofficulty remembering who i was and where i was. No thoughts...till i had to force them to restart...

 

It seems you are really making progress. But you shouldn't force anything. I've had the same thing..feeling uncomfortable without thoughts and feelings. But you have to get yourself used to it, take your time. No thoughts and feelings is your destination if you want to continue along this path. Learn to act like you have feelings and thoughts. You need to be able to show this to others in civilization but you don't need to feel these yourself, just eternal love!