See/Hear/Feel and the Sensory Grid
See/Hear/Feel is Shinzen’s compact public interface for routing experience. The older Sensory Grid is the fuller map behind it.
Practitioners often need a small vocabulary in the middle of practice. “See, Hear, Feel” is simple enough to use. The richer grid explains why those simple labels can cover mental images, mental talk, emotional body sensation, physical sights, physical sounds, rest, flow, and vanishings.
The older grid distinguishes:
- inner and outer sensory events;
- visual, auditory, and body channels;
- restful aspects;
- flowing or changing aspects;
- vanishings or Gone.
The later interface lets the practitioner use See, Hear, and Feel flexibly by focus range. A label is a pointer for attention, not a metaphysical claim.
The Hidden Grid
The compact labels work because their meaning changes with the selected range.
| Focus range | See | Hear | Feel |
|---|---|---|---|
| Focus In | mental image | mental talk | emotional body sensation |
| Focus Out | physical sight | physical sound | physical body sensation |
| Focus on Rest | visual rest | auditory rest | body/emotional rest |
| Focus on Flow | visual change | auditory change | body/emotional change |
| Focus on Space | visual openness/thinness | auditory openness/thinness | somatic openness/thinness |
This is why “Feel” can mean emotional body sensation in one context and physical touch in another. The active range supplies the meaning.
Working Translations
| If the instruction is… | The label usually means… | Watch for… |
|---|---|---|
| Focus In and note Feel | emotional body sensation | not every body sensation is emotion |
| Focus Out and note Feel | physical body sensation, including touch, pressure, smell, or taste | medical or task signals still matter |
| Focus on Rest and note Hear | quiet, silence, or auditory rest | rest is not the same as dullness |
| Focus on Flow and note See | visual change, shimmer, movement, fading, or morphing | do not manufacture Flow |
| Note Gone | the noticed moment something drops away | continuing absence is Rest, not Gone |
| Focus on Space | openness around or thinness within experience | advanced spaciousness language needs safety and source caution |
When Labels Feel Ambiguous
First make the range explicit. A label means different things in Focus In, Focus Out, Rest, Flow, Space, or Everything. Then choose the simplest label that preserves contact and CCE.
| Situation | Useful move | Avoid |
|---|---|---|
| Several components arrive together | Choose one component, or use an inclusive label such as See Hear, See Feel, Hear Feel, or All. | Waiting for a perfect parse before practicing. |
| A body sensation might be emotion or physical touch | Use Feel In when the emotional body component is clear, Feel Out when the physical-origin sensation is the target, or plain Feel when the distinction is not useful yet. | Forcing emotional meaning into every body sensation. |
| A sound, thought, image, or sensation just ended | Note Gone at the drop-off; use Rest for the continuing quiet or absence afterward. | Treating ongoing absence as repeated Gone. |
| Everything is too busy | Narrow to See, Hear, or Feel, or re-note one available event. | Turning broad practice into frantic scanning. |
| One label is too narrow or avoidant | Widen to Everything, Focus In, Focus Out, or the range that includes the live challenge. | Using simplicity to avoid the main event. |
| Labels create commentary, strain, or self-testing | Soften, slow, simplify, or drop labels if direct contact remains clear. | Treating more words as automatically more clarity. |
The practical test is not whether the label is maximally exact. The test is whether the label helps attention know the event, stay with it briefly, and allow it to change.
If you are overwhelmed, See/Hear/Feel can reduce experience to workable categories. If you are advanced or precise, the grid can reveal hidden distinctions: inner talk versus outer sound, emotional Feel versus physical touch, Rest versus dullness, Flow versus imagined energy.
The interface also permits different levels of detail. A beginner may simply note “Feel.” A more precise practitioner may know whether that Feel is emotional fear, physical pressure, restful ease, flowing vibration, or spacious thinness. Precision is useful only when it improves CCE.
Small Practice Examples
Planning dinner during a sit can be Hear In if it appears as inner talk, See In if it appears as mental image, and Feel In if it carries body emotion. A knee ache can be Feel Out unless the main event is fear or irritation about the ache. A moment of silence after a sound ends can include Gone at the drop-off and Hear Rest in the quiet afterward.
Common Confusions
Do not think the simple labels erase the older grid. Do not think the grid requires constant microscopic analysis. Use the level of detail that supports CCE.
Another confusion is treating missed notes as failure. Shinzen’s later interface deliberately makes room for missed, guessed, late, averaged, and repeated notes. The point is a quality moment with experience, not perfect capture.
More categorization is not always better. If labeling becomes frantic, dissociative, compulsive, or task-unsafe, simplify, stop, ground, or seek appropriate support.