Peanut Butter, Rainbow, Wine, Triangle Pose, Blah Blah Blah and Rock and Roll

So if practice is important when it comes to appreciating life or living with its challenges, then how exactly do we practice? In sitting meditation we relate with the sensation of the breath and work skillfully with thoughts, so that is one way to develop or nurture our capacity for mindfulness. Yet we have six sense gates, if not more depending on how you count them, that we can use. In meditation it is often the feeling of the breath at the tip of the nose, depending on the technique, that helps us find a sensation that is grounded in the present. That sensation is a sensation like many others. In yoga, sensation shows up in my trikonasana pose as feet on the floor, muscles stretching, breath and so many other things. Some of the sensations feel pleasurable, some are not, yet they are all now if I can just breath them in and feel them with out too many labels or judgements. So there are a lot of things available to us through the sense gates. We can listen to music such as the Tragically Hip, or Mozart if you like. The sound is experienced in its freshness when we really enjoy music. When we taste food we can also slow down and really taste it. Peanut butter is really inexpressible if you sink into the experience. The aroma of wine or any other scent is a direct experience before we think of it with descriptions and try to impress others with our analysis. When we see a rainbow we can just see it. Any form that appears to our eyes can be appreciated nakedly and directly. And then there is thought. We can also look directly at the thinking mind, see the thought that is happening right now and by seeing it as thought we are freed from the illusion that our thoughts represent a solid reality. Our mind may be going "blah blah blah" yet just look at the present thought, that "blah" and see it. This way there in nothing within our experience that need escape mindfulness.