Now we will move into the meditation on smells. You may want to pause the video and get some incense to light, or you can use just the subtle sense of smell of what’s happening in the room. I will light an incense. The more intense smells are interesting, but also subtle smells are very interesting to work with. You don’t need to have a particular stimulus for smell. There is always something going on.
So we bring our attention to the realm of smelling and smells. We’re noticing how thoughts want to label smells as pleasant or unpleasant or we’re not sure, and that process, again, we’re bringing those thoughts out into the sky of the senses, into the light of day, and saying “Oh, those are just beautiful little thoughts saying that the smell is this way or that way, but it’s just an opinion, and it’s part of the bigger space of the realm of smells.” Coming back to the smell itself without following judgements.
How is smell different from the other senses? What is unique about it? Feel that. How is it similar?
If you’ve lost the scent, so to speak, you can just be curious about what is the most subtle thing you can smell? You may be amazed that there is always something there, even if it is very faint, even the lack of a particular smell maybe is a kind of smell we haven’t acknowledged. If the smell is very strong you can even increase the strength of the smell.
Just noticing how that feels, and what I mean by feeling here is sensation, the bare sensation of the sense, not our interpretive feeling. That might come along and it’s welcome, but we’re really feeling or sensing the sense, being with its actual information. Our opinions and reactions are part of that space, remember we’re not trying to stop them or prevent them from projecting, but we’re bringing them into this larger conversation where they are put in a place, not of prominence, but a supporting role to the prominence of the sense.
Again, remember the five senses meditation throughout your day, 5/5/5, sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, five seconds with each, and then layering all five and resting in that spacious expanse, the sky of the senses, letting thoughts be like clouds or butterflies.
This is part of a whole series! Have a look…
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