有尋有伺地

What This Concept Is Actually About

The phrase 有尋有伺地 looks forbidding — and most contemporary readers, encountering it for the first time, assume it is a meditation manual's term for some exotic absorption state, accessible only on retreats. It is not. Within the 《瑜伽師地論》 (*Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra*, T1579), it is something more fundamental and more ordinary: it is a way of carving up the entire terrain of possible experience into three zones, according to how deeply a being has let go of the restless, searching quality the text calls 尋 (vitarka) and the closely related, more finely probing quality it calls 伺 (vicāra). The whole classification — 有尋有伺地, 無尋唯伺地 (vitarka-free, vicāra-only ground), and 無尋無伺地 (neither ground) — is built on a single organizing question: *how far has the desire (欲) for this searching-probing activity been abandoned?*

This is the first thing to register, because it is precisely where popular renderings go wrong. The text is emphatic: this classification is not built on whether 尋 and 伺 happen to be active in your mind at this very moment. A person who has not left behind the 欲界's appetites can occasionally have a mind completely free of both — say, in a flash of insight, a moment of stunned silence, an absorbed listening. Conversely, a person who has trained deeply enough to belong to one of the higher 地 may, when stepping out of that absorption or when being born into a corresponding realm, still exhibit 尋 and 伺. So **有尋有伺地 is a classification of *realms and stages* (界地), not a label for momentary mental weather**.

Now, the specific boundaries. According to the 《瑜伽師地論》, 有尋有伺地 includes two zones: the entire 欲界 (desire realm) and that portion of the 色界 (form realm) corresponding to the 初靜慮 (first dhyāna) — *except* for the narrow band called 靜慮中間 (antarā-dhyāna, the "intermediate dhyāna"), which is its own special zone. 靜慮中間 is 無尋唯伺地 — vitarka has already gone quiet, but the subtler vicāra continues. 第二靜慮 (second dhyāna) and everything above, including the whole 無色界 (formless realm), is classified as 無尋無伺地, where both these seeking-and-probing functions have been thoroughly transcended.

So if you mentally place yourself in this map, almost every human being now reading this sentence is located in 有尋有伺地: the desire realm is the territory where 尋 and 伺 are thoroughly in residence — searching, probing, weighing, sizing up, narrating. And the text is teaching something important: this realm is not a temporary state to escape from; it is a structural feature of experience that has its own dignity, its own characteristic operations, and even its own relationship to the higher attainments.

The text also adds a refinement that often gets lost: within the 無漏 (āsrava-free, taintless) dimension, the first dhyāna that is attained by a noble being — that is, by entering concentration *via* taking 真如 (suchness, ultimate reality) as its object rather than ordinary sense-objects — is also called 有尋有伺地. The reason is subtle: such a meditator uses the cognitive *equipment* of 尋 and 伺 — the apparatus of seeking and scrutinizing that operates on 名身 (nāman, names), 句身 (pada, phrases), and 文身 (vyañjana, syllables / letters) — but directs it toward the unconditioned. So the term can also mean "this concentration is structurally still using the seeking-probing apparatus, even though the mind is fully taintless." This single addition carries enormous weight: it tells us that the apparatus of conceptual investigation is not, by itself, a stain.

To understand why all this matters, we need to be precise about what 尋 and 伺 themselves are.

The 《瑜伽師地論》 analyzes each of them along 七項 — seven dimensions: their 體性 (essential nature), 所緣 (object), 行相 (characteristic activity), 等起 (volitional manifestation), 差別 (distinctions), 決擇 (determination), and 流轉 (transmission / arising from conditions). The two functions differ chiefly along the first three. 尋 does *not* deeply examine its object; its essential nature is 思 (cetanā, volition/intention) — it is the swift, impulsively directional aspect of mind that propels attention outward toward a target. 伺 *does* deeply examine; its essential nature is 慧 (prajñā, discriminating wisdom-discernment) — it stays with what is found and analyzes it more carefully. Both operate on language-objects (names, phrases, syllables) and take 義 (artha, meaning) as their true object. 尋 performs a 尋求 (paryeṣaṇa, seeking) activity; 伺 performs a 伺察 (vicāraṇa, scrutinizing) activity. The 等起 — what they bring forth as their external manifestation — is the production of 語言 (speech, internal or external). This is a particularly telling detail: 尋 and 伺 are the cognitive dynamics *behind* language. They are what cause us to speak — both externally in conversation and, more importantly, internally in the running commentary the mind layers onto experience.

Then comes the important logical relationship: 一切尋伺必是分別，但分別不必皆尋伺 — *every* 尋 and 伺 is a form of 分別 (vikalpa, conceptual discrimination), but *not every* discrimination is 尋 or 伺. And relative to 出世智 (lokottara-jñāna, the supramundane wisdom of a noble being), all the citta and caitta (mind and mental factors) of the three realms belong to 分別, but they are not all 尋 or 伺. In other words: the category of "conceptual discrimination" is broader than the category of "seek-and-probe"; and the category of "seek-and-probe" is itself broader than the supramundane — meaning that 尋 and 伺 are real cognitive functions that operate even in untainted dhyāna, but the *calibrated use* of them toward ultimate reality is still possible at the highest level of the first dhyāna in the āsrava-free sense.

Finally — and this often surprises people — the text states clearly: **尋 and 伺 in the first dhyāna can actually *benefit* superior samādhi, can *embrace and purify* one's own ground of concentration, and when they are called "movements" (動), the term is relative to the *higher* grounds, not relative to themselves.** In their own context they are not restless disturbances; they are the seeking-probing apparatus that supports the very stability they share with.

There is also a terminological sister-term that gets confused with 有尋有伺地: 有尋有伺三摩地. The first is a 界地分類名稱 — a name for a realm/classificatory stage. The second is a 三摩地相應狀態名稱 — a name for a samādhi that is *accompanying-relationship* (相應) with 尋 and 伺. They map onto each other but they belong to different conceptual layers. A person in the 欲界 can be in 有尋有伺三摩地; a person in the corresponding first dhyāna's āsrava-free form can also be in this samādhi; the realms differ, the samādhi label stays.

This, then, is what the term is actually pointing at: not a thing to escape, but a *map of where you already are*, with the second-level term 尋/伺 also identified with some precision, and with the higher classifications waiting where they have always been waiting.

Walking It Through in a Contemporary Life

Let's take this technical framework and *walk* it — step by step — through an ordinary day, in the kind of scenes where modern readers will recognize themselves. I will translate the classical categories into experience as faithfully as I can, marking where the classical map and the popular intuition diverge.

Scene 1: The commute

You're on a crowded train, leaning against the door. Your eyes move from the phone screen to a stranger's face, to the route map, to a half-formed worry about a meeting, to the smell of someone's coffee, back to the phone. The mind is in constant low-level motion: it is seeking (尋) — "what is this? who is that? should I be worried?" — and probing (伺) — "this one's tired, is he going to sit down? what's that smell? am I going to be late again?". The classical term for what is happening here is 有尋有伺地 — and not merely in the colloquial sense of "I am thinking"; in the technical sense: the *full apparatus* of seek-and-probe, with 思 (intention propelling outward) and 慧 (discerning scrutiny) as their essential natures, operating on 名身、句身、文身 — yes, even the *linguistic* layer: the running internal commentary is not a separate thing from the seek-probe, it is its 等起 (volitional manifestation). To put it bluntly: the inner voice narrating your commute is the external manifestation of 尋 and 伺 becoming speech. The map places you unambiguously in the 欲界 (desire realm), and within that, in the deepest stratum of the seek-probe zone.

Here is the first place where popular mapping usually goes wrong. People tend to equate "meditative" or "calm" with 無尋有伺地 or higher — but a calm body with a busy mind is still unmistakably in 有尋有伺地. The text's classification is not about body stillness; it is about whether the seeking-probing 欲 (the *appetite* for it) has been let go. Your eyes may be closed on the train; if the seeking apparatus is still in gear, you are here.

Scene 2: Reading something difficult

You open a paper, an essay, a poem. You are reading with effort. The mind is moving along the lines, scanning for meaning. This is 尋 working — the swift seeking of the meaning-object (義) through word-objects (名身, 句身, 文身). When you pause, when you re-read, when you turn the sentence over — that is 伺 working, with its 慧-nature, *deeply examining* (深推度) its object. Now, an interesting classical claim from the text: in the 第一靜慮地天 (heavens of the first dhyāna) — beings whose realm is still classified as 有尋有伺地 but at the subtler end of it — the 尋 and 伺 are said to 一向欣行, 觸內可愛境, 引樂, 與喜相應, 唯求不離樂, 且為不嬈心業轉. In other words: a first-dhyāna being's 尋 and 伺 are oriented only toward bliss, contact only with internally lovely objects, accompanied only by 喜 (joy), seeking only non-separation from bliss, and the karma they constitute does not disturb (嬈) the mind. Compare this to your reading: yes, your reading is also 尋/伺, but the object has the texture of an 欲界 engagement — mixed with 苦 on encountering difficulty, mixed with 憂 when you cannot get it, *capable of disturbing the heart*. The map is finer than a binary: it places even seek-probe functions on a continuum from gross-欲界 engagement all the way up to the pure-bliss orientation of the first dhyāna.

Scene 3: A moment of absorbed listening

A friend is telling you something important. Mid-sentence, an old thought drops away. You stop formulating your response. You are not seeking, not probing — but you are *fully there*, in the listening. Most contemporary readers would naturally identify this moment as "I'm out of 有尋有伺地, I'm in something higher."

The classical text is more interesting. It says: 未離欲界欲者，因教導作意的差別，偶爾亦會有無尋無伺意現行. A person who *has not yet* left behind the 欲界's appetites can, because of a specifically *instructed* (教導) shift of attention, *occasionally* show a mind free of 尋 and 伺. This is not a permanent shift of 界地. It is a 氣候 moment within your habitual climate. The 欲 may still be operating in the depths; the seek-probe apparatus has temporarily quieted. Without using the technical jargon every second, a contemporary takeaway is that the absence of obvious inner speech for a few moments is not the same as having left the realm where seek-probe is structurally present. This is precisely the gap the 《瑜伽師地論》 is built to bridge: don't mistake weather for geography.

Scene 4: An irritation in an intimate relationship

Your partner says something slightly off; the mind jumps: "is he/she trying to control me? am I being unreasonable? what's the evidence for / against?" Three threads of thinking are now running in parallel: one is 名身、句身、文身 — the actual wording of what was said, echoed internally; one is 義 — the *meaning* being extracted and held as object; one is the moving 尋-force that keeps seeking the next fragment and the 伺-force that keeps scrutinizing. 尋 and 伺 here, doing exactly what their 等起 says they do: producing speech — in this case, speech you have not yet uttered aloud, but is already internally articulated as a response, an accusation, a justification.

Where this scene is often misread in contemporary discourse: people take the recognition that "I am being conceptual, judgmental, narrative" and assume that is the whole story. The classical analysis says no — the cetanā (intention) and discriminating wisdom-discernment (慧) in this scenario are specifically 尋 and 伺. They are powers of mind, capacities of mind; the fact that they are currently wound around an ordinary irritation doesn't make them either nothing or nothing-but-bad. The question is the *orientation* and the *欲 (appetite)* around them.

Scene 5: Meditation — a quiet sitting, eyes closed, breath counted

Here is where I want to flag the most important contemporary confusion. Many books and apps teach meditation as "stop thinking." The framework in the 《瑜伽師地論》 is *not* that. The framework recognizes that the very first and most basic realm of seeking-probing — 有尋有伺地 — is one where, under proper instruction, seek-probe can still be applied to 義 (meaning), can still be aimed at anything from ordinary sense-objects to 真如 (suchness), and in the latter case produces a noble first dhyāna. So in your sitting, if 尋 is gently placing attention on the breath (the swift, non-deeply-examining propulsive 思-character), and 伺 is staying with the subtler detail of the next breath (deeply examining with 慧-character), the classical framework would say: you are operating in 有尋有伺地 with the apparatus actively serving the meditation; you have not "failed" by thinking; you are using the apparatus itself as a tool. What would shift you toward 無尋唯伺地 is when the propulsive reaching has quieted but the subtle discerning contact remains — for instance when the breath settles and attention becomes very still but a fine, delicate probing of attention-without-effort is present. What would shift you toward 無尋無伺地 is when both are no longer present and the mind rests in the second dhyāna's evenness.

The crucial contemporary takeaway is this: the apparatus is not the enemy. This is exactly what the text is teaching by pointing out that the āsrava-free first dhyāna — the concentration taintless beings attain — still belongs to 有尋有伺地, still uses 尋 and 伺, and belongs to it on the basis that 尋 and 伺 are the 處法 (the cognitive *dwelling-place* and *methods*) by which that noble concentration operates. The mind is using its own most searching capacity to investigate truth.

Scene 6: Watching the mind drift toward sleep

Toward the end of meditation, or late in the evening, there is often a 無尋唯伺-like drift — the propulsive 尋 quiets; the inner voice falls silent; but a delicate probing-discernment continues, almost dreamlike, hovering on impressions and half-meanings. Then the probe itself dissolves, and there is a moment of wide, formless rest — even if only the length of a breath. That last state has the shape of 無尋無伺地 — not permanently attained, but momentarily entered.

The text would then remind you: already the moment you return to wakeful life, 尋 and 伺 may switch back on. And this is precisely what shows that the 地 labels are about the graduated path (漸次) of leaving behind the *appetite* for these functions — not about their momentary activity. A person who has not formally cultivated the higher 地 can, on a quiet evening, temporarily enter that state of wide rest; a person who has formally cultivated it can, when they come out, still exhibit seek-probe. The geography is deeper than the weather.

Why a Contemporary Person Needs This Map

If you have read this far, you may be asking: *is this classical cartography actually useful to me, here, now, in a world of notifications and AI assistants and cortisol?* The answer is: yes, in ways that the technical terms do not at first advertise.

First, it gives you a more accurate vocabulary for inner experience than the binary "thinking / not-thinking" almost universally offered in popular culture. Modern wellness discourse tends to divide the mind into "monkey mind" vs. "still mind." The 《瑜伽師地論》's schema offers at least three intermediate grades — seek-probe full, propulsive-dormant-but-probing-alive, propulsive-and-probing-both-quiet — and *also* distinguishes between *occasional* entry into a quiet state and *structural* abandonment of the seek-probe appetite. With this vocabulary, you can describe more honestly what you are doing on the meditation cushion, in therapy, in conversation. You stop asking "am I thinking?" and start asking "which layer of seek-probe is operating, what is it trained toward, and how firmly is the appetite for it present?" That second question is closer to the actual mechanics of training the mind.

Second, the framework protects you from a very particular modern mistake: mistaking temporary quieting for genuine release. Many contemporary practitioners report an experience of profound stillness and immediately conclude, "I have attained the second dhyāna" — or its secular equivalent. The classical text says: *possibly not*. You may have had a momentary 教導作意 — an instructed shift of attention — that produced a 欲界-resident mind free of 尋 and 伺. This matters because the map distinguishes weather from geography, and it matters for life-choices whether the quietness you found was a momentary shift or a structural turn. It is not that one is "better" than the other; it is that you cannot realistically plan further training on a misreading.

Third, it dignifies the seek-probe apparatus and removes the shame around it. Many of the people reading this were taught — by well-meaning teachers, by app design, by cultural ambient noise — that the goal is to *eliminate* the inner voice. The classical text says something subtler: the same apparatus, when properly directed, supports the highest noble concentration. The reason the āsrava-free first dhyāna is *still* classified as 有尋有伺地 is precisely because it is 依尋伺處法, 緣真如為境 — using 尋 and 伺 as its *dwelling-method*, taking suchness as its object. The reverse of the modern mistake is therefore equally dangerous: treating inner voice as your permanent enemy. The 瑜伽師地 tradition's framework says: this is your cognitive equipment. Its work is in the seek-probe domain. Whether it serves you depends on what you point it at and what appetite you wrap around it.

**Fourth — and this is perhaps the most useful for contemporary life — the framework gives a graded view of *what kind of seek-probe you can be doing*. The text describes, for example, the distinction between the 尋 and 伺 of someone in the first dhyāna (一向欣行, always moving toward gladness**, contacting only internally delightful objects, accompanied by 喜, with karma that does not disturb the mind) and someone in the desire realm. These are both *seek-and-probe*, but they are different in quality of object, quality of affect, and quality of effect on the citta. Similarly, in contemporary life, two people may both be "thinking a lot," but one is in a chronic anxiety-rumination that *嬈心* (disturbs the heart) and the other is in an absorbed engagement (a writer in flow, a programmer in a bug, a gardener reading a leaf) where seek-probe is *not* disturbing the heart. A precise map here helps you notice which modes of seek-probe are already stabilizing you and which are wearing you down, and to attend to the difference.

Fifth, the framework speaks to a particular contemporary spiritual concern: we live in an era of "information saturation" and "continuous partial attention." The classical text knew that the mouth of 尋 and 伺 — the very apparatus of seek-probe — *is the apparatus of language, both spoken and unspokens*. To investigate where that apparatus rests, when it quiets, when its 欲 (appetite) loosens, is to investigate something *very close* to what contemporary attention science is fumbling toward — except with a far older and far more articulated map. The analogy is useful, but I want to note its limits clearly: the classical schema has its own lineage, internal logic, and aims; contemporary attention research has different methodologies and is not in a position to "prove" the 瑜伽師地 framework. What can be said is that the classical framework asks the same kinds of question — about voluntary vs. involuntary attention, about appetitive engagement vs. settling, about coarse vs. fine grain of inner speech — and has a more articulated answer.

Sixth, a less obvious reason. When contemporary practitioners are introduced to 無尋無伺地 (the third-stage classification), they sometimes conclude — because it sounds so complete — that the *aim* of practice is to live in that stratum permanently. The 瑜伽師地 framework is far more thoughtful than this. It classifies realms along the 漸次 (gradual) path of leaving 欲 for 尋 and 伺; it acknowledges that even in the higher 地 there can be seek-probe return upon exiting; and it actively treats **尋 and 伺 in the first dhyāna as *supportive* of the most refined concentration there. The implication is not "ascend as fast as possible," nor "shame the seek-probe layer." It is: know which 欲 you are operating on, and gradually loosen the grosser appetites around these cognitive functions.** This is a far more humane and far more workable program than either the "kill the inner voice" contemporary program or the "transcend everything" religious-looking program.

Common Misreadings and Clarifications

There are roughly seven ways this term gets distorted in contemporary conversation. I want to walk through each carefully, because they are not all obvious.

**Misreading 1: "有尋有伺地 means *thinking happens*. 無尋無伺地 means *no thinking happens*. The aim is the latter."**

This is the most common error and the most damaging. The text specifically warns that the 界地 classification is *not* based on momentary mental weather. To repeat the text's exact point: 三地之名依是否離尋、伺之欲而建立，不單依某一時刻尋、伺是否現行 — the three 地 are named according to *whether the 欲 (appetite) for 尋 and 伺 has been abandoned*, not on whether they happen to be active in this moment. A modern person experiencing "no thoughts for ten minutes" in the morning is *not necessarily* in 無尋無伺地 as a structural reality. A noble being operating 尋 and 伺 toward 真如 *is in 有尋有伺地 as a structural reality*. The schema is about the *appetite-pattern*, not the *arising-pattern*.

Misreading 2: "有尋有伺地 = desire realm. So it's bad."

The text explicitly includes the 初靜慮 (first dhyāna) and its associated heavens (and their non-disturbance 業) within 有尋有伺地. This is not the lowest possible grade. The 欲界 (desire realm) is one of the two zones *within* the broader 有尋有伺地 classification, and even within the desire realm, the 尋 and 伺 of human beings and 欲界天 are mixed with 苦 and 喜; those of first-dhyāna beings are 一向欣行 (always-glad-moving) and do not 嬈心. "Locating yourself in 有尋有伺地" is not a damning sentence; it is a recognition that puts your experience in the right neighborhood of the map.

Misreading 3: "尋 and 伺 are roughly synonyms for thoughts."

The text distinguishes them sharply along three dimensions. 尋 has 思 (cetanā, volition/intention) as its essential nature and does *not* deeply examine. 伺 has 慧 (prajñā, discriminating discernment) as its essential nature and *does* deeply examine. 尋 is the swift, propulsive reaching for a target; 伺 is the slower, more careful probing around it. To collapse the two is to lose half the analysis. And — this is often missed — *both* operate on 名身、句身、文身 (names, phrases, letters) and take 義 (meaning) as their true object, and both have producing speech as their 等起. So they are not just "two flavors of thinking"; they are the language-bound, intention-then-慧-coupled cognitive functions whose visible effect is human speech and human inner commentary.

**Misreading 4: "If 尋 and 伺 are linguistic, the classical text is committed to the claim that *all* thinking is linguistic."**

The text is more careful than this. All 尋 and 伺 is called 分別 (conceptual discrimination), but the reverse — "all conceptual discrimination is 尋 and 伺" — is explicitly denied: 分別不必都是尋伺. There are forms of 分別 that are not 尋 and 伺, just as there are operations of mind in the formless realm that are 分別 (relative to 出世智) but not 尋 and 伺. So the linguistic-coupling is a *property of* 尋 and 伺 specifically, not a thesis that all non-perceptual cognition is language-shaped. A contemporary parallel may help: not every cognitive operation of the mind is verbalizable; the verbalizable ones are precisely those that 尋 and 伺 support.

Misreading 5: "有尋有伺地 and 有尋有伺三摩地 are the same thing."

They are related but on different conceptual layers. The first is a 界地分類名稱 — a name for a realm/stage classification. The second is a 三摩地相應狀態名稱 — a name for a samādhi that is in *accompanying relationship* with 尋 and 伺. **The 地 (realm) tells you where the practitioner's *appetite-pattern* structurally places them; the 三摩地 (samādhi) tells you the *quality* of the absorption-state they are in at a given moment. You can be in 有尋有伺地 (desire realm) and yet be sitting in 有尋有伺三摩地 (a concentration state that uses 尋 and 伺). You can be in 有尋有伺地 (āsrava-free first dhyāna) and still be in 有尋有伺三摩地. The sama-named option across layers is exactly what trips up readers who want a one-to-one mapping.** The text itself insists on the distinction.

Misreading 6: "The highest is the best, so 無尋無伺地 is what to aim for."

Some people, when they hear of the higher 地, treat them as grades to climb aggressively. The 瑜伽師地 framework does not support this. 尋 and 伺 in the first dhyāna are said to 能攝益殊勝三摩地，亦能攝受自地靜慮而令清淨 — they can actually *benefit* the most refined samādhi and *embrace and purify* the stability of their own 靜慮. If they are called "movements" (動), it is relative to the higher 地, not relative to their own 地. In their own context they are not restless; they are supportive. So the higher 地 are not a moral or technical "better than" the lower in every dimension. They are a *loosening* of a particular 欲 (appetite), and the *supportive cognitive functions* remain useful in their own place. A contemporary person benefits from internalizing this — it is much closer to mature practice than a "climb and escape" reading.

Misreading 7: "This is just an esoteric meditation-fantasy."

It can read that way if you meet the text only on its own terms. But two features make it much more than fantasy. (a) The text uses *real* technical vocabulary (尋, 伺, 思, 慧, 相應, 等起, 欲, etc.) defined with internal consistency and operationalized across many pages. It has the structure of a systematic phenomenology of mind rather than a poetry. (b) It explicitly handles edge-cases — the desire-realm practitioner with momentary 教導作意 who has no 尋 or 伺 active; the noble being whose āsrava-free first dhyāna is still classified with 尋 and 伺 — and these edge-cases *make the framework more coherent, not less*. A fantasy would not survive such edge-cases; a phenomenology does. Where the framework is most useful is exactly at these edge-cases, where popular models collapse.

One Final Note on Use

A last practical reflection, for those who want to take this seriously. The 有尋有伺地 / 無尋唯伺地 / 無尋無伺地 classification is a *technical* operationalization of something simpler and older: that searching (尋) and probing (伺) are not metaphysical accidents but specific cognitive functions with specific 体, specific objects, specific 行相, specific effects on speech and mind. To know them in your own experience is to know a great deal about how your life is shaped. The 《瑜伽師地論》 is not asking you to escape this 地. It is asking you to **map it carefully, recognize where your 欲 for these functions is still operating grossly, and to learn — *gradually* — to point the same apparatus toward finer and finer 義, until, eventually, it serves the highest investigation of all.**

Practically: a contemporary practitioner can begin with the simple acknowledgment that when they sit and the inner voice is active, *that voice is not a failure of practice* — it is the 等起 (volitional manifestation) of 尋 and 伺, and it can be observed, distinguished from the 慧-discernment of 伺, oriented carefully toward the chosen 義, and, with training, eventually quieted or transformed toward 真如. That working orientation honors the depth of the classical scheme more than any slogan about "no-mind" or "pure consciousness" could.

This, I think, is what the term is for: not to frighten, not to mystify, but to let the practitioner — ancient or modern — see where they are, see what apparatus they are using, see what appetite is wrapped around it, and proceed from there with eyes open.