How to Look and What to Look With

With the first fetter, you only have one tool to look for the self, and that is your attention. You can use this attention to look around the various sense organs and their sense fields.

First, try to become familiar with what the attention is:

Without moving your head, or your eyes, move your attention to the left foot. Notice that your left foot is known by its sensation, by which there’s a non-judgemental or non-descript awareness of your left foot.

You might also notice that there’s a spatial distance where your mind stretches out to settle the attention on the foot in order to make sense of it in the spatial reality. You might even feel a subtle pull in your eyes towards the foot. If you notice that - then good.

It’s really important that you notice this non-judgemental awareness going forward, where the foot is known only by sensations. Next, move your attention to your right hand. Now move your attention to your forehead, and then to the back of your head.

So this is your attention spot, and you’ve managed to move it around the body. You can use this as a way to inquire into the self. Let’s go deeper…

What you can do next is use this attention to traverse the various sense organs. For example, without moving your head or eyes, settle your attention on your left foot again – then move your attention to an object in the room, say a chair or a door.

As a side task, did you notice the very moment the attention traversed from the hearing field to the seeing field, as if it jumped over a barrier, or crossed a sensation layer, or warped from one to the other? Have another look, if you like.

Now you’re familiar with how the attention works, you're going to look for the self. 

Move your attention to the hearing space and spend a few moments noticing sounds. Next move your attention to the seeing space, and spend a few moments noticing what you can see in the room. Next, move your attention to the feeling space (the body) and notice the weight of the body on the chair, and any other sensations.

This is 3 of the sense organs, and their sense objects (sounds, body, sights).

What then is the sense of you?

Have a look around those three sense organs for you.

What makes it certain to you that you’re in the room

What does that feel like? Is it a sense that you’re there, or is there a background image in your mind of you that you carry around?

Perhaps look at what you feel isn’t you, (a chair) and turn the attention back to what feels like you.