SENSES NEURISH SELF

 

When we hold a hammer and use it, the hammer becomes part of our body.  We do not think explicitly  of holding the hammer.  We just direct it and hit the nail with it as if using a part of our body.  This is called embodiment.

 When we drive a car we feel as if the car is part of our body. We use the wheel and the break/gas pedal without explicitly noticing them.  We just drive the car.  The car becomes a part of our embodiment.

 Embodiment exists in many layers in fact.  For example, we do not explicitly feel our fingers and distinctive muscles in our hand when we hold something.  Our hand is part of our body, it is part of our embodiment.  We feel fingers and  hand muscles as part of hand, as the embodiment of hand.

At the core of this onion like layers lies the self.  Body is the embodiment of self.

 Returning back to the car as an embodiment,  we do not feel that we hold the driving wheel explicitly when we drive.  But in the case of an emergency, we are conditioned to hold the drivers wheel much strongly and squeeze our hands on it.  This stops the automatic processes and increases our attention to the urgent situation.

 The driving wheel is the interface between the car and the driver.  Increasing the importance of the interface increases the feeling of the body.  Interface nourishes the body.

 Returning back to the hand as an embodiment of self; hand is an interface between self and the environment.  We feel the hand and even all the body through our senses.  Senses are part of the interface mechanism between self and the body and environment.

 “Arousing the Senses” nourishes the self as Tommie Hahn’s book suggests.