Pause for a moment. Choose one of your senses. Now, be aware of the manyness that that one sense is currently experiencing.

• if the visual sense: everything that is within your immediate, long-range, and peripheral view; perspective
• if the auditory sense: all the sounds in all their varieties – leave none out, including sounds in your mind or inner ears; hearing guidance or troublesome thoughts, echoes of past words or hurts
• if the sense of touch: the obvious of standing on the ground or sitting on a chair, plus your clothes, hair, tongue against teeth, swallowing saliva, blinking, the air in the room or the breeze, sun, or shade or temperature of night on your skin, on your ears, in your hair; being touched by kindness, by anger, by doubt or fear; in touch with an emotion, a loved one, or an intuitive touch of knowing; the touch of devotion for your teacher or your Path or god or your heart
• if the sense of smell: your smell, shampoo, deodorant or lack thereof, the scent of food, beverage, pet(s), pet beds, soil, autumn, rain or baked earth, flowers or lack thereof; the scent that you are following -being guided by- on your Path, through your day
• if the sense of taste: your mouth, what’s in it, taste in clothes, accoutrements, room appointments, body splash or hand lotion, taste in music, reading material, preferences in general

As one does this exercise (just one sense in the Now), one will discover something significant. All of our senses are omni and neutrally take in their appropriate data points as equal. All of the data points, equal. All of the data points in an omni present manner. None of the senses function selectively. They cannot. And, the data points (leaf, wall, speck on one’s shirt, the smell of the trash under the sink, the taste of this morning’s hot beverage) are not only all at the same time, but are equal as data points. An equality. A neutrality. It is the self that picks and chooses, prefers and dismisses, laughs with the nuthatch or laments the lack the rain. These assessments are not made by the senses. This is important. The senses do not evaluate; the self does.

All the while, the senses -in their omni, universal, ongoing and ceaseless ’til death registering of the Allness of Existing in Existence- are clearly the instruments of Awareness, omnipresent Awareness, essence of Being. Awareness does not evaluate. Awareness does not pick or choose. All -inside, outside, and all around- are equal to and in Awareness. And, equally empty while equally awareness being aware.

As one opens to this fact of Being, delight, awe, openness, empathy and compassion somehow increase. Maybe it is Oneness that one is discovering. How marvelous!

{Unfortunately, the audio file was corrupted. Sorry.}