What we have not yet seen
How what we experience takes shape
If we follow this more closely, something else begins to come into view.
Attention does not hold.
Reactions feel true.
What is happening is difficult to separate.
But there is something else that has not yet been clearly seen.
What is missing is not more attention, and not a better way of managing reactions, but a way of recognising how what we experience is formed.
Something is already taking place before we know that anything is happening.
It can be glimpsed in simple activity.
You reach for something. You stand. You turn your head.
These actions feel immediate and unproblematic. They seem to happen directly, without mediation.
But if you look more closely, it becomes possible to notice that they are not simply occurring.
They are being carried out.
There is a coordination of balance, a direction of movement, a distribution of effort. The body adjusts, the head moves, the breath changes. All of this takes place together.
And yet it is not experienced as a process.
It is experienced as a single, continuous act.
In the same way that thought, feeling and sensation are fused, so too is action.
We do not experience the organisation of what we are doing.
We experience only what it produces.
Because of this, the organisation itself remains unseen.
It is not that it is hidden.
It is that it is not distinguished.
What appears is the outcome.
What is taking place is the process by which that outcome is being formed.
To recognise this is to begin to see that experience is not simply given.
It takes shape.
And if this is so, it may become possible, gradually, to perceive it more clearly—by observing how what is already happening is being put together.
There is now the possibility of looking not only at what appears, but at how it is taking shape.
This is not how we usually look.
Why everything feels like one thing
When thinking, feeling and sensation merge in experience
If you try to observe yourself in the midst of ordinary activity, something else begins to appear.
Not only does attention shift, and not only do reactions feel convincing, but what is happening is difficult to separate.
Everything seems to arrive as one.
A thought appears, a feeling arises, the body responds. These are not experienced separately. They come together as a single event.
We experience only the result.
This is the third difficulty.
It can be seen in simple situations.
You are engaged in something, and a reaction forms. There is a sense of irritation, or pressure, or unease, or simply a feeling that something is happening. If you look closely, it is possible to notice that several things are happening at once: a thought about what should be happening, a feeling in response, and a set of physical changes, tightness, shifting balance, altered breathing.
But ordinarily, this is not how it is experienced.
We do not say: a thought has appeared, a feeling has followed, and the body has adjusted.
We say: something is wrong.
The different processes are not distinguished. They are fused into a single experience that feels simple and self-evident.
This fusion makes observation difficult.
Even when attention is present, what appears is already a composite.
It is not clear where one element ends and another begins. Thought blends into feeling, feeling into sensation, sensation into action. The whole is taken as one continuous event.
Because of this, it is hard to see what is actually taking place.
A thought may be taken as a fact. A feeling may be taken as a conclusion. A physical tightening may go unnoticed entirely, even as it shapes what is perceived.
Each element influences the others, but the interaction remains hidden.
Attention, when it is present, often lands on the already-formed whole.
It meets the experience after it has taken shape, rather than seeing how that shape has emerged.
It becomes necessary, gradually, to distinguish what is happening within the experience itself. To see that what feels like a single event is composed of different processes unfolding together.
At first, this is difficult.
The moment one element is noticed, the others are already shifting. Attention is drawn toward one aspect, and the rest recede. The whole reorganises itself before it can be clearly seen.
But even a brief glimpse is enough to suggest that what seemed simple is not simple at all.
What appears as a single, unified experience may in fact be a convergence of processes, thinking, feeling, sensing and acting, forming together.
This is not how it appears.
Upward Thought 
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