What if noticing perceptions wasn’t about trying to do anything but simply letting go?

Usually, I speak about perception as being pre-thought, that is, it precedes the conceptual space of thoughts and ideas. It’s the space where we take in the world through our senses. This is an easy and understandable way to introduce the topic for those of us familiar with cause and effect and linear time. However, it’s not exactly true. Because we’re always perceiving the world through our senses, even as we’re thinking. Our perceptual experience takes a backseat. It’s the foundation of our experience and thoughts and ideas are layered on top.

So, becoming aware of our perceptions doesn’t involve ‘trying’ to do something or getting somewhere. It doesn’t require a method or discipline or practice. It’s not a habit to cultivate. Instead, it’s simply a matter of letting go (or letting those thoughts and ideas go) to experience the moment in its purity. Surrendering to what’s already there, underneath the layers of thoughts, opinions, judgments, likes, and dislikes.

Someone wrote to me recently saying that she finally understood what I was saying about perception. She suddenly caught a colour, then later shapes and patterns in the landscape, with her peripheral vision. When she looked directly, she realised that she had moved into analysing and judging, even if in a positive way. It was then she had the aha moment. Perceptions often come like this, when we least expect them, when we’re not “trying.” And, it usually involves a great deal of self-awareness, noticing when your mind is hard at work, papering over the true perception.

In her book, A Life of One’s Own, Marion Milner writes about her experiments in mindful self-awareness.

“All this constant effort to think about what will make you the sort of person you want to be is another way of trying to escape surrender, trying to be what you are not. But I did not understand what I had to surrender to. It seemed to me that it was not what I did with my thoughts that brought results. Perhaps I must neither push my thought away nor let it drift. I must simply make an internal gesture of standing back and watching, to not push.” ~ Marion Milner, A Life of One’s Own

Simply noticing that you’re thinking is often enough to dissipate thoughts.

It transforms the moment without any direct action. Especially notice when you’re qualitatively interpreting a thing, a person, or an experience. Let your interpretation (even positive ones) go and just experience as it is. Notice when you think or say that you like or dislike something. Let those likes and dislikes go, at least for a moment. Notice your shoulds. Let them go too. See that you always have a different choice, whether you decide to take it or not.

Milner also suggests relaxing the body as a way to increase perceptual awareness.

“Knowing how to relax improves rest and the powers of perception. even annoying distractions are made better by relaxing towards them. Experiencing the present with the whole of my body instead of the pinpoint of my intellect led to all sorts of new knowledge and contentment. I began to guess what it might mean to live from the heart instead of the head.” ~ Marion Milner, A Life of One’s Own

Honestly, we live in such an evaluative, judgy world, it feels freeing to relax body and mind, to let judgments and opinions go for a bit. And if we experience this surrender as we encounter the world in our everyday life, we’ll discover a world much richer and deeply satisfying than our normal surface experience.

* Please join me for 30 Days of Perception, beginning November 1st amd we’ll have a November of letting go.