GOING PANORAMIC 

Even a century ago, we had panoramic countrysides to stimulate our panoramic awareness naturally, while walking to work. The modern city dweller is overwhelmed by either boring walls or colourful focal points: lights, adverts, signs, screens, and other people.

It is a state of intensive waiting – ready and waiting for anything and everything which could indicate danger.

It isn't done by stopping focusing, focusing on not focusing, or anything else to do with focusing. It's done by panoraming.

The ability to switch it on is the first step.

Going outside is probably the most difficult guideline.

I had luck, i learnt during a sunny spell in spring and i was in a garden everyday. There are a number of ways to develop the ability indoors, at night, and in winter. But to get the full effect with panoramic vision you need an open view, with birds and the occasional squirrel.

Street corners are good – but if you're standing up be sure to lean up against something.

But the point is that standing still is not a normal thing to do, learning how to do stand still will take you longer than learning panoramic sensing.

Normally people fidget shifting their weight from one leg to the other. The eyes aren't free to learn panoramic seeing when standing up and being still, they are already busy, they need to focus as a third balancing point (and i presume blind people use their hearing in a similar way, or their stick gives a third support point).

Once you can do it, once you have established panoramic vision you can use it for balance to stand, but the habitual need for focusing holds us back when learning.

There are lots of reasons for starting with short periods.
a) It's a knack rather than something to be found by concentrated effort.
b) Humans have no natural predators. Humans lack the motivation to go panoramic. One minute creates a feeling of urgency – it's got to be done now, in a minutes time it'll be too late.
c) To realise that you can turn it on any time, without doing anything to prepare for it.
d) A few seconds is all it needs to interrupt any repetitive thought.

e) All human babies do it. It's easy and natural, it's a human birthright.

The repetitive impulse of short regular periods of stimulation will act as a catalyst: they are the best way to tell your subconscious "it's time to remember".

f) A minute a day which leaves you wanting more, is immeasurably better than 20 minutes trying to do it, and getting bored and distracted.

g) Short periods reduce the concentrated work-load, make it easy, make it fun. To generate motivation we need to enjoy something, and if doing this – or even trying to do this – is enjoyable or interesting, then we will want to repeat it.

It's a clever idea to check your feelings for a few seconds after doing it. By consciously recognising the sort of feelings created by panoramic sensing, we will generate curiosity about it and want to repeat it.

If you want to make it a priority, then instead of long meditation sessions, do it several times a day for 30 seconds.

Once you can do it, then i believe you will want to do it for short periods several times a day.

The trees are swaying and its raining, and we notice everyday sounds which incorporate change, like bird song, or the wind and rustling leaves in the undergrowth. These can all be beautiful and very relaxing, for humans and probably animals.

But for animals, noticing the background is pointless and could even be dangerous. It's when changes and movements in the environment happen suddenly and unexpectedly – a crunching of leaves or a change in the bird song – that it's important for animals to notice and possibly react.

It's this openness to anything quick which is happening within the panoramic field which is vital to animals.

And it happens quite naturally, after watching and listening panoramically for a few minutes, the background fades away, and it's only the sudden changes and movements which we notice.

This results in a sort of multi-focus on all the random movements happening within the 'big picture'.

Don't make it complicated or conflicted. If a heron flies over and you want to focus on it, then focus, if it's beautiful it's natural to focus. Then return to the panorama.

The peripheries always diverge when facing forward, they encourage an expansion of the sidewards vision; if you sit going backwards, the visual field converges.

Trains are better than busses because there are less stops; and the less other passangers there are, the better it works. Maybe it works as passanger in a car, i've never tried it out.

The reason i found it good and remembered it, was because when walking in nature, to adapt to the uneven ground, i involuntarily and immediately started bending the knees and walking with a 'bounce'.

Relaxed walking in nature can often bring us to the edge of this way of sensing. Most people are vaguely aware of about 60°-90° of the panoramic horizontal centre field. Making this conscious is a good idea.

Meditation normally uses inspiring focal points. Panoraming doesn't replace focused activity, it makes activity safe. It's value is when coordinated or alternated with focused activity. So it would be advantageous to incorporate panoramic periods in any meditation.

Animals dozing can perhaps be compared to meditation. When dozing it can be used for hours at a time, but then animals use it in a less intense manner. Longer period can be combined with inner-body awareness. Inner-body awareness opens up new dimensions; we can listen focused on a bone in the spine, or listen internally in a panoramic way.

I remember once watching a blackbird, a pheasant, a deer and a hare, all grazing within two meters of each other – a wonderful collection of different sensory abilities – and they were all more or less facing each other, randomly taking it in turns to check their surroundings.

But just as a nice extra idea: Humans primary sense is vision, so any sensible two humans would do it back to back. Any group would be in a circle back to back.

But this isn't just letting go or relaxing. And there's a big difference between diverting our attention by doing something else, like having a cigarette or a cuppa tea – and directly and actively stopping the system which generates all abstract ideas. Panoraming is the active, direct, and natural way to stop all thinking and doing.

An Everyday Panoramic Experience
Panoramic Hunting

Please continue with Warm Up Exercises and Ideal Situations

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