The conversation of touch

May 3, 2007

In our naturally egocentric way, we consider our senses channels of information that bring the world to us. We scan the horizon to identify threat or opportunity, we read; we listen to what is hidden or to what is spoken, what is sung; we are drawn to scents and repelled from odors, and we delight in the flavor of what is pleasing, disgorging what is foul; we feel heat and cold, abrasion and softness.

The play of the world through our physical senses is what awakens us into our bodies, teaching us what it is to be alive. When we are young, this absorption with the things of the world is everything, and all flows from the outside toward our selves. We are small wells of gravity, the center of the universe, where each spark and sound exists to teach us and to fill us.

In the mirror of the external we learn about ourselves, if sometimes inaccurately, and live the early part of our lives as students. We learn the language of the senses, begin to understand the language of touch.

But until we begin a physical practice such as T’ai Chi or yoga or dance or the martial arts, and unless we begin such practice, it is unlikely we will recognize that our senses are not passive, and that as we listen, we speak; or that as we watch, we also touch.

Unless we begin and follow simple awareness practices as developed in Insight Meditation, or the Arts, or Tantric yoga (which looks through the lens of the senses to see the divine in all things), we may never leave the childhood of our senses, the solitude of our egocentrism, to find that as our fingers feel, they also make contact. That in every sensation there is not only a flow of information from world to self, but an exchange of information, a dialog in which we are active partners.

This has not been measured: of course it hasn’t. The science of measurement is born in the same childlike wonder in the world, it observes how the world affects the self, the center, the instrument used for recording it. In fact, science as a whole recognizes that the presence of the observer in an experiment invalidates that experiment; science does all that it can to remove the self from the equation, seeking objective and lasting truths, and in so doing would deny the possibility that our senses are anything but receivers.

As with any paradigm, our sight becomes our blindness, and the more effective our vision, the deeper our lack of perception in any direction outside the line of sight. It is worth exploring – everything at the periphery is worth exploration. Whenever we look beyond what we know, we find deeper, more beautiful, and more complete truths, and we strengthen ourselves and our relationships with that knowledge.

Consider this utterly unscientific situation: standing in a crowded room, you are talking to friends, the conversation spirited, and everyone amiably engaged. The evening is buoyed by drinks and music, with a backdrop of laughter and outward smiles, perhaps inward tears, the hum of companionship. Yet there is something… you feel drawn out of the circle of words, as though someone had tapped you on the shoulder. As though someone were standing right behind you, waiting, you sense their presence.

The feeling comes and goes every few moments, it seems insistent – what is that? You glance up to find someone looking your way, from the other side of the room; your eyes meet and… spark!

Have you never felt that? How is it we sense another’s attention at a distance? I think it is more common than we credit, that while the sense of sight received your image, in that sense or in its essence, something was also communicated, something sent with the eyes which was received. In a similar communication, something was sent through or with the eyes the moment you returned the gaze.

We can familiarize ourselves with the dance of senses, we can gain mastery over the art of touch and become more engaged with the world around us, by allowing the possibility that as we receive we also send. Allow the possibility that no sensation is ever passive, but instead an interaction of You with World. Once we drop the false notion that all creation speaks to a mute “I”, we are able to find our own voice, to grow out of our physical childhood into a gracious and sensitive physical maturity, developing the capacity to speak the language of the senses, not merely be interpreters of it. Here the word sensitivity takes on greater and deeper meaning.

The simplest place to begin such a practice is with the tactile. With your finger, reach out and touch the table in front of you, or the surface of the chair beside you, and then close your eyes. Allow all or your awareness to be in the end of that finger, feeling the texture and the temperature of the object. You can move your finger slightly to sense to contrast of one point to another.

This is using your senses to receive from the world: by slowing yourself and giving it attention, as opposed to processing this touch unconsciously, you have already enriched your connection to the world. By giving awareness to senses, you practice intimacy, and the colors and sounds of the world become clearer.

How often do we eat without tasting our food? How often do we make love unconsciously, reducing what should be a symphony to a single, dull tone? Touch an object near you, not of you, and feel. Once you are sure you have noticed everything there is, once you are getting bored, stay with it longer. Your mind is bored, not your finger.

You stop feeling anything new once you had recognized the table, or the chair. “Oh. A table.” But in fact, there is always more to be perceived. Keep your finger in place. Does the temperature of the surface change with the contact of your body? How does the surface deform when you apply greater or lesser pressure? Does the surface return to its former shape after a minute movement across it? Can you tell just by touch? Can you feel the relationship of that object to the earth from this single point of contact?

And how is the object affected by your touch? Notice that as the pad of your finger makes contact, you have received information from the object, and the object has equally received the pressure, heat, texture and weight of your finger. It has received the slight capillary pulse which runs through the veins there. It has received the slighter electrical pulse of the nerves. It has received the hum of blood and current which makes up your entire body. It has received the infinitesimally small magnetic field which your bones and muscle generate. It has been influenced by your spirit, which is the sum total of all of this manifested flesh, plus the spark of creation which resides within it.

Well, a table has no senses to perceive this, of course. Does it?

To distance ourselves from the unfortunate habit of considering what is human sentient, and the rest of creation deaf and mute and insensate, let’s avoid the challenging thought that the table “knows” you are there, and simply leave it at “you influenced the table”. The pressure of your cells and all the other minute details of your living were exerted directly on that object – in fact, the uppermost layers of cells and atoms in you and in the object without doubt intermingled with that touch, otherwise there would have been no true contact, and you would not have been able to feel.

The object, whether you consider it inanimate or not, was influenced by your presence. The sense of touch which brought the world to us, also brought us to the world, it moved in both directions. When you received the world into yourself, you allowed the world to receive you as well.

Maybe the table “knows” you are there, but was unable to do anything about it…?

We can become familiar with the balance-point between sending and receiving. It is very useful to learn how to find that point: it allows us to become more subtle with our touch, helps us be aware when we are touching, and allows us to speak and know we are speaking when we do. All interaction is poorer and less detailed when we are unaware of the connection, or when we are unaware that we are part of a dialog, or that we can influence that dialog. Every interaction is richer when we are aware and active, when we respond with finer and finer nuance to what we receive.

An ancient practice from the yogic tradition is the mudra. This is where a meditator or speaker will hold one or more fingers in contact with other fingers or a part of the hand, creating a loop of energy, or a point of focus for the mind. There is the heat of contact, and the pulsing of blood and nervous system… it is a simple gesture, but given attention, just as you gave the table or chair attention, it reveals depths of information and sensitivity that its simplicity belies.

A basic mudra takes the pointer finger and the thumb of one hand, and touches the pads of the two together, making a circle, like the “OK” sign. The other fingers may be outstretched, but for our purposes here, allow them to be soft and passive, so that your attention can stay with the joined fingertips.

In this simple touch, you can explore your connection to every person and every thing in your life. You have a finger which touches, and a thumb which receives. Or is it the thumb which touches, and the finger which receives? In fact, your two digits share the touch. Don’t press too hard. Allow your fingers to touch, don’t make them touch.

As in all yogic practices, you are the observer and the observed at one and the same time. Give attention to the Observer and make sure your intentions are not over-present; once you have softened your intentions, return your awareness to the fingers. Come back to the Observer any time you feel lost in the sensation of touch, and move into the fingers any time you feel disconnected from the senses.

You may have thought sitting like a Buddha thinking about nothing was meditation, or that meditation required a retreat from the senses. This intimate play of the senses and emotions and thoughts is in fact the real practice of meditation. Far from sterile or disengaged, you learn about your physical self and your mind, you watch your body and mind in play on the planet – that is the essence.

Return your attention to your fingers. Notice when your mind has tired of the game, when it has decided “Oh. That is a thumb. That is a finger.” If you get stuck there, the world remains flat… it is a flat world beyond whose edges you fall into oblivion. You’ll never discover the New World… and it is your own fault. Boredom is always your own fault. Don’t let your world be flat as a TV screen.

Go back to your fingers and feel the pressure of one on the other. Without changing the pressure of the fingers, be aware of receiving from first one, and then from the other. Be aware of the warmth and pressure generated by one, then the other. Don’t be fooled by grand gestures or 3D movies, by amusement parks or Caribbean cruises. Your relationship to the world is contained within this simple gesture, this mudra. How do you touch, and how do you receive touch? How do you communicate with the world through your senses?

Notice how the finger and thumb touch, and where they touch. There is a point of equilibrium where they share equally, though they are unequal. Like partners in relationship. Roll the pads very slightly and apply a little more pressure, or a little less. Allow the sensation of contact to move from the pads down the length of the digits, to meet in the hand. Allow the sensation of contact to move down one digit and up the other, completing a circle.

Though it is rarely recognized, our human connections are this: sharing energy and information in both the seen and the unseen, skillfully or unskillfully, with or without awareness. Everything is in everything else, so in the tiny laboratory of a mudra, you find a mirror that reflects this simultaneous receipt and offering of energy.

Such a small exercise, a few moments’ reflection. Yet if you meet the world with this learning, if you meet a lover with learning, how full and connected that meeting will become.