Day by day, and much longer than we suppose, we use our senses, our five senses. That’s why it’s necessary to direct our attention towards them and start practicing it in our daily lives.
Touch is a reaction of our skin’s sensitivity to contact with objects. It allows us to perceive coldness, warmth, softness, roughness… If we satisfy ourselves with these simple physical abilities, we will only seek what is comfortable, without paying attention to subtle differences that some objects have compared to others. Attention in this case leads us to recognize details, nuances, degrees, expanding our subtle knowledge far beyond the pleasant and unpleasant. When touch develops in its height and depth, it transforms into a special sensitivity through which we notice people and build interpersonal relationships. “Having tact” in this case means understanding each person and interacting with them in a way that they can understand us too. When attention is combined with this ability of relating, it becomes discretion, one of the greatest virtues. he.
Hearing guides us in perceiving sounds, but there is a big difference between hearing and listening. Listening is paying attention to what is being heard. Hearing – is something that everyone with a developed sense of hearing can do. However, paying attention to sounds, knowing how to distinguish them in order to interpret them as distinct forms of language and expression can only be the result of refined attention. Indeed, attention is what enables us to distinguish noise from sounds, a rough rhythmic thump from harmony in music.
Vision is perceiving the shapes and colors of things with our physical eyes. Yes, but there are more subtle ways of seeing that require the presence of attention; then one can observe, consider what is being observed, think, evaluate. Knowing how to see or, in other words, looking with attentiveness, is a way of discovering, exploring, penetrating with our inner eyes beyond the forms and appearances. It means to know, understand, and comprehend. To see attentively, we need light, and that is intuition, true imagination.
Taste is the sense through which we experience We love the taste of things. However, that pleasure or disgust, which is felt by the tongue in principle, spreads to the psyche and transforms into attraction or repulsion towards things and people. In that case, doing things “to our liking” means doing what arises as an immediate impulse of the senses in general, and especially of emotions. However, taste can expand to the limits of good taste, provided that attention is involved. Then, it becomes an inner ability: to perceive and seek what is beautiful, distinguishing it from the ugly and meaningless. It is obvious that, along with good taste, life has a different flavor. And that is also an achievement of attention.
The sense of smell allows us to perceive aromas. It is difficult to qualify them, and at best, we risk identifying them as pleasant or unpleasant, with a great risk of disagreeing with other people’s opinions. But attention ennobles the sense of smell and transforms it into a much more subtle sensation, to the point that in everyday language we usually say that a “good nose” is the wisdom of discovering what is obviously hidden; it is almost like a divine power. Just a little above that, having a good sense of smell means being immersed in the air and pleasant scents; it is the attention to what the wind brings and takes away and to the scents that radiate from all beings. There is an infinite distance between the sense of smell and grasping the essence of things.