Zooming In On Raw Sensory Data

An important basic instruction in mindfulness meditation is to pay very close, detailed, direct attention to only what's right here, right now. We're zooming in on just the bare, unadorned, experiential data. Why? Because this approach differs qualitatively from our default habit, and yields qualitatively different results. Habitually, after we barely catch glimpse of someone or something, we stop gathering data & immediately complete the picture with our baggage: concepts, beliefs, theories, fears, hopes, anxieties, needs, preferences, etc - "the story of me". Hence Anais Nin's statement:

“We don't see things as they are,

we see them as we are.”

While meditating, we notice endless self-talk - yes, "the story of me". We come to realize that the old line from a song "but words get in the way" refers to seeing things directly. So we practice gently letting go of words & concepts, patiently attending to just the bare, unadorned, experiential data.

Senior meditation teacher, Steve Armstrong: “It is at the pixelated level that we can empirically experience the nature of the physical body and the nature of the mind and mental activity.” Pixelated refers to the image on a computer screen, when enlarged so much that we see the individual pixels that form the image, the enlargement having reached the point at which no finer detail can be resolved. So we practice zooming in as close as possible to directly observe the unique characteristic of this moment.