Method 89 · Attention, witnessing and inquiry
Including the Whole Field
Include entire field AdvancedIn the app
An advanced contemplation in which attention widens to include everything present at once, body, senses, thoughts and space, without singling out any one part.
Understand
Attention usually works like a torch. It picks out one thing at a time: this sound, that thought, an itch, a voice across the room. Everything outside the beam fades into the background. This method points to a different way of attending, in which the beam widens until nothing is left out. Sensations in the body, sounds, light, thoughts, moods and the space around you are all included together, as one field.
In descriptions of this kind of contemplation, there is no need to choose what deserves attention. Whatever is present is already part of the field, and it is allowed to stay. Pleasant and unpleasant, loud and quiet, inner and outer all sit side by side. Teachers often say the effect is a kind of evenness, because no single thing is singled out to be chased or resisted. Some describe a sense that awareness itself is wide and open, with experiences moving through it like weather through the sky.
A common misunderstanding is to try to attend to every detail individually, as if ticking off a very long list. That quickly becomes exhausting and narrow. The method is closer to softening the focus than to sharpening it. Another misunderstanding is to treat the field as something to be held steady by effort. Including everything does not mean controlling everything; it means letting the field be as it is.
Because this way of attending removes the usual single anchor, it can feel spacious to some people and overwhelming or unmoored to others. If you are sensitive to sensory overload, or prone to feelings of unreality or detachment, methods with one clear, physical focus are usually a better fit. People with a history of trauma, psychosis, dissociation or serious mental-health conditions should seek suitable support before taking up intense contemplative practice.
For people with a settled foundation, it is often approached as a natural widening that follows steady focused attention, rather than a replacement for it.
Deep dive
In the working classification used by Seven Doors, this method belongs to the Attention family, among the later contemplations of the Vijñāna Bhairava that move from particular objects towards awareness as a whole. Many earlier methods narrow attention onto a single point: the turn of the breath, a sound fading, a sensation in the body. This one moves in the opposite direction. Instead of choosing a doorway, it lets every doorway be open at once.
Teachers influenced by the Kashmir Śaiva tradition have often described consciousness as a single, unbroken field in which all experiences appear. From that point of view, the habit of picking out one object and ignoring the rest is a useful skill for daily life, but it can hide the wider field in which everything is known. Practices of this kind are commonly read as ways of noticing that field directly. Some interpreters emphasise inclusiveness, so that nothing is pushed away. Others emphasise the openness of awareness itself, suggesting that once everything is included there is no particular place for attention to stand. These are interpretive readings, and teachers describe them in quite different ways.
Comparable approaches appear in many contemplative traditions under names such as open awareness, panoramic attention or open monitoring. They are often described as complementing focused attention: steadiness developed on a single object makes it easier to rest in a wide field without becoming scattered or lost in thought.
Historically, wide-field contemplation was usually introduced after a period of steadier, more focused practice, and often under the guidance of a teacher. Sustained for long periods or in intense retreat conditions, open practices can bring up strong emotions, sensory overwhelm, a sense of boundlessness that some find disorienting, or difficult memories that would otherwise remain in the background. These responses are more likely in people already vulnerable to anxiety, trauma or dissociation.
A modern, careful adaptation would look different from those intense forms. It would be short, and would start from a clear anchor, such as the breath or the feeling of the body sitting, before widening a little at a time. It would allow attention to return to that anchor whenever the field feels too large or busy. It would not ask anyone to hold everything perfectly, and it would treat a scattered or crowded session as ordinary rather than a sign of doing it wrong. And it would make stopping, opening the eyes and looking around a simple, always available option. The short guided practice in the Seven Doors app is built along these lines, while this page describes the method rather than giving step-by-step instructions.
For those drawn to this kind of open attention, a useful foundation is steady work with single anchors, such as breath, sound and body, followed by the gentler witnessing practices in the Awareness Door.
Described, not instructed
Best approached after the foundations, or with a teacher. Described here, not instructed. This page explains the method and its context without step-by-step instructions.
Source text
Verse 138 · The Vijñāna Bhairava, ed. Mukunda Rāma Shāstrī, Kashmir Series of Texts and Studies 8 (1918)
मानसं चेतना शक्तिरात्मा चेति चतुष्टयम् ।
यदा प्रिये परिक्षीणं तदा तद्भैरवं वपुः ॥
mānasaṃ cetanā śaktirātmā ceti catuṣṭayam |
yadā priye parikṣīṇaṃ tadā tadbhairavaṃ vapuḥ ||
Translation
Mind, awareness, power and the individual self: when this group of four has dissolved, dear one, then there is Bhairava’s form.
How the practice adapts it
The verse says that when mind, awareness, power and the individual self dissolve, Bhairava’s form appears; the practice follows popular renderings that read the four as things to include, widens attention to everything present at once and asks nothing to dissolve.
Seven Doors’ own translation from the Sanskrit of the 1918 KSTS text, made and reviewed with AI assistance in two independent passes; the works listed were drawn on for the meaning of hard words, from the AI’s knowledge of them, and were not compared page by page.