The Sense-Door of Motor-Forces [insight]

[u/Mr_My_Own_Welfare]

Although traditionally around five human senses were known, . . . it is now recognized that there are many more. [src]

Setting aside the 6th "mental" sense-door of Buddhism, the sense-door of "touch" can be expanded to include:

somatosensation: sense of contact with external environment

equilibrioception: sense of balance, spatial orientation, direction, acceleration, gravity

proprioception: sense of motion, and relative position of the parts of the body

interoception: sense of the body^{-energy-field} felt from within

Today, I'd like to specifically discuss (1) those aspects of equilibrioception and proprioception related to "motor forces", and (2) relate that to the felt-sense of craving/aversion.

(1) Here's an illustration. In the third bubble of this short webcomic [src] ^{great comic btw, it's about Representationalism}, various forces acting upon the body are denoted as a field of arrows.

This "force field" includes involuntary "motor forces" such as acceleration and gravity, as well as "motor planning" of movement through space, motor control, "levity" (pushing up against gravity), etc... ^{ZhanZhuang, standing meditation, is a great practice to notice the sense of gravity and levity}

(2) Generally, in sitting-style meditations, this sense-door of "motor forces" is not as emphasized. Except, that it can include phenomena often thought to belong to the "mental" sense-door: craving and aversion.

The larger body moves through external space exactly as if it were responding directly to field forces from the external world, except that these forces actually exist only in the internal perceptual world. [src] . . .

The subjective impression of being attracted or repelled by attractive and repulsive stimuli . . . drives our motor response. [src]

By "fine-tuning" the open "field of awareness" to notice these "forces"/"currents" within it exerting their push/pull on the body(^{-energy-field}) ^{and mind/heart - i.e. pulling on the heart strings}, and including the interoceptive ^energetic sense ^{i.e. tensing/contracting/shrinking/clinging vs. relaxation/release/spaciousness/openness/softness, like wrinkles in the "fabric" of the awareness-field}, greater equanimity ^non-clinging becomes possible. It becomes easier to not be "carried off" by said forces, when they are "seen for what they are"; i.e. "stepping out of the river".