Grounded Presence, Open Awareness

Guided mindfulness on "Grounded Presence, Open Awareness" from our Power of Engaged Awareness course with Fleet Maull, Ph.d., co-founder of the Engaged Mindfulness Institute.

Fleet Maull, PhD, CMT-P, is an author, meditation teacher, consultant, coach, seminar leader, motivational speaker, social entrepreneur, and peacemaker. He is the founder of the Prison Mindfulness Institute, the National Prison Hospice Association, and Windhorse Seminars & Consulting. He is a senior teacher in two Buddhist traditions: the Tibetan Buddhist Shambhala lineage and a Roshi (Zen master) in the Zen Peacemaker Order and Soto Zen lineage.

Transcript

Hi,

Welcome to this guided practice for module five,

Where we're bringing mindfulness to everything that arises in our experience and bringing mindfulness into daily living,

Integrating mindfulness with daily living or what we might call mindfulness in action,

What my first teacher called mindfulness in action and meditation in action.

So,

In some ways what we're talking about with this module is how we bring mindfulness into the activities of our daily life beyond the formal practice on the meditation cushion or the chair or wherever we do our formal sitting mindfulness practice.

And so,

Now I'm guiding a practice that we're doing in a formal kind of sitting mindfulness way.

So,

But nonetheless,

I'm gonna try to sort of extrapolate out to that.

And as I spoke about in this module,

We can intentionally incorporate activities we do as mind training and mindfulness practice,

Which could be walking or washing the dishes or doing the laundry or eating mindfully or driving mindfully,

Walking our dog mindfully and so forth.

And then we can work with bringing awareness in moment to moment awareness,

Really working with presence and also working with recognizing how mindful,

When we're practicing mindfulness regularly in a formal way,

Then mindfulness just arises continually.

There's just these gaps in our experience and we,

Ah,

There's just a moment of presence.

We can just appreciate those and then go on.

We don't have to try to own them or hold on to them,

But we just appreciate how this arises.

And then naturally,

There's a kind of connecting of the dots that happens organically.

And so that over time,

Enough of these experiences have kind of connected that there's a background of mindfulness and awareness happening all the time.

It's almost inescapable.

And even when we're distracted,

There's still this kind of background of mindfulness and awareness,

Which is a very good thing.

And so at any rate,

I'm gonna lead us in a guided practice here,

Kind of in support of that,

Okay?

So as always,

If you'll first take a moment to establish a posture that for you feels relatively uplifted and naturally dignified,

Awake,

Open,

Relaxed,

And so forth.

And I would encourage you to do this particular practice section with your eyes open.

And you can do it with the gaze lowered a bit,

Like that.

Or you can do it with the gaze raised if you like.

And towards the end of it,

I will actually invite you to raise the gaze if you have your gaze lowered,

Okay?

So to begin with,

As always,

I would invite you to bring your attention to the body.

And by body,

We mean the actual tactile,

Physical sensations that make up the moment-to-moment experience we call body.

So just very patiently,

Slowly feeling into,

Dropping into the body.

Very often,

Our attention's up here in the head as we know,

So just kind of letting our attention float down through the neck,

Shoulders,

Upper body,

The back and chest and so forth,

Down through the torso and waist and through our hips and buttocks and down into our legs and all the way down to the soles of our feet.

And just relaxing into the body,

Coming into the body,

Feeling the sensate flow of the breath.

All the sensations that arise with the breath flowing in and out of the body.

Belly rising and falling,

The ribcage opening and closing,

The passage of air across the nostrils and part of the lips,

Feeling the diaphragm muscle contracting and relaxing,

The abdominal muscles contracting and relaxing,

The intercostal muscles between the ribs,

Helping the ribcage opening and closing,

Just feeling all of the sensation in the body.

So as always,

Just being curious about and open to feeling all the sensations we can feel on the surface of the skin from head to toe and also internally within the body as deeply as we can.

So first grounding ourself in the body and the breath.

And as always,

If we notice our mind wandering or we find ourselves getting distracted by thoughts kind of going down the rabbit hole,

Daydreaming and so forth,

The minute we recognize that,

We just let it go and come back.

Just let it go and come back.

There's no point in having a dialogue with ourselves about it and certainly no self-criticism.

We just come back.

We just come back.

And we come back with curiosity.

We come back with a gentle commitment to drop in deeper and with tremendous curiosity to really know ourselves and our experiences as deeply as we can.

You know,

In our practice,

We're kind of like being really good scientists,

You know,

Pure scientists that are not trying to prove anything,

But just want to see what is.

And we have a powerful electron microscope,

Let's say,

And we're just looking deeply into something.

We want to see deeply into it as we can.

And we don't have any agenda about what we want to see.

We just want to see what is with as much depth and clarity as we can.

And so our electron microscope is our mindfulness practice.

And so that's one way of talking about what we're doing.

So feeling into the body as deeply as we can and in doing so,

Developing this deeply felt physical presence that anchors us,

Anchors us in the present moment,

Anchors us in nowness.

Like feeling the physicality of the body,

Feeling ourselves sitting on the chair,

The cushion,

The earth,

Feeling,

You know,

Our feet on the ground,

Whatever our posture is,

And really feeling the weight of the body,

You know,

The force of gravity holding us down,

Feeling the overall weight of the muscles and bones,

And just feeling the mass of the body and the overall dynamic aliveness of the body,

And letting that very direct lived experience of body really ground us and anchor us here in the present moment.

Feeling the freshness and aliveness of each and every sensation that makes up our experience of being alive in our human body,

Breathing with our heart beating,

This amazing thing we call life.

And then with that as the foundation,

Mindfulness of body and breathing,

I invite you to be aware of the space in which all of those sensations are continually arising,

Or at least appearing to arise,

Appearing to dwell,

Appearing to fall away.

The space of awareness,

Of mind,

Of attention,

However you want to think about it,

But there's some kind of space in which all of these sensations arise,

In which we perceive them externally and internally.

And you may also be aware of sounds at the moment.

You may be aware of odors or tastes.

With your eyes partially open,

You're aware of visual input.

So just being aware of all these arisings,

All these arisings in our sense fields,

Sight,

Sound,

Smell,

Taste,

And touch.

So I invite you to be aware of the myriad arisings that are coming and going,

But also to be aware of the space in which all of that is occurring.

And I invite you to consider that that space is somewhat like the vast sky.

Think of the vast sky on a clear blue day.

And then things arise,

Wispy clouds arise,

And maybe clouds start to gather,

More substantial clouds,

Big cumulus clouds arise,

Or eventually there's a darkening and there's thunderheads arise.

But things come and go,

And then the sky clears again.

So think of the vast sky and how things are continually arising and falling away within the sky.

So in the same way,

There's some kind of vast space in which all these sense perceptions are arising and falling away continually.

Within that same space,

Cognition arises,

Thoughts come and go.

Within that same space,

We have emotional experiences,

Which are embodied experiences,

But they're,

In some sense,

Another kind of perception,

And they're arising and falling away in the same space.

So just being curious about this vast space in which all these things are coming and going.

And I invite you now to think of a place somewhat distant,

Far away,

But where maybe you've been recently or you have a vivid memory of,

And just bring that to mind.

Or a friend or a family member who lives in a different city,

And maybe you know their home,

And just bring that to mind.

So that you have the experience that within this vast space of mind,

There's almost a sense of being able to travel beyond time,

Beyond space,

Limitations.

Wherever your attention goes,

Whatever thoughts arise,

Whatever images arise,

The mind can contain all of that,

Whether they're from the past,

From the imagined or anticipated future,

What's going on right now,

Whether they're here in the immediate locality of your body or they're at a great distance.

All of this arising and falling away continually in this vast space that,

For lack of a better term,

I'm calling mind,

Whatever that is.

It's not exactly something we can get our hands on,

Right?

It's vast,

Apparently empty.

All kinds of things can come and go in it.

It doesn't seem to be limited by any one particular thing.

You know,

All kinds of colors can arise,

But mind itself is not one particular color.

And as we explored in an earlier module,

This base of mind can become somewhat tinted or colored with various mind states and moods and so forth.

But again,

We can see that these are arising within this vast space of mind.

So I would invite you now to raise your gaze and just look out into the space,

Extending your awareness out in front of you in this most panoramic way possible,

Sort of a wide-angle gaze,

Sort of a soft,

Wide-angle gaze.

Not that you're zeroing in on particular things,

But just this open,

Wide-angle panoramic gaze.

And have a sense of extending your awareness to the sides as well,

Behind you and above and below.

So you really have this 360-degree or sphere-like awareness going in all directions universally.

All four directions,

Above and below.

And just extending your awareness out.

Your awareness out further and further and further.

And it's including everything that arises in your life,

All of your relationships,

All of the objects you deal with day in and day out in your home,

The things you use,

Your clothing,

Your bicycle or car,

Your transportation.

All the interactions with the natural world.

Your food,

Making food,

Just all the activities of your life.

Just keep expanding that awareness out.

And just have the sense of,

As we're going through our daily life,

Maybe just imagine,

You know,

When you finish this session,

You're gonna be kind of going into whatever your schedule is today,

And imagine the things you're gonna be doing,

And how as you're leading your life,

You can have some awareness of the vastness of this space of mind,

Awareness,

That all this is occurring in.

And that having a sense of that,

You could have greater mindfulness and awareness of everything and greater appreciation because we don't get locked into that tunnel vision so much.

Or if we do notice we're kind of getting into that constricted tunnel vision kind of,

Then we notice that we can just relax.

And we let go back into this openness.

And so I just invite us to think about working with our mind and our experience in that way,

In the midst of our daily lives,

And taking various opportunities to focus and then open.

So with intentional mindfulness activities like washing dishes,

I could really focus on washing the dishes,

But by doing so,

I could also then open and really enjoy washing the dishes,

Not only with that mindfulness of really feeling the activity,

But also the sense of space that that's happening in.

Again,

I mentioned that I'm the dishwasher in our home,

And I love washing the dishes during the daytime,

Especially because I can look right out the window above the sink out to a beautiful landscape in the Connecticut River.

And so I get to have both the mindfulness activity of washing the dishes,

Really feeling the soapy water and the hot water and doing all that,

While at the same time having that sense of the space of the landscape.

So again,

I invite you to just extending your awareness out further and further and further,

And just appreciating being alive in our human body with a good body,

A good mind,

And a good heart,

And appreciating how vast awareness is.

The vast sky-like nature of mind.

And having some connection with that,

Then the particular risings in our mind,

All valid parts of our experience,

And some challenging,

Some wonderful,

But all maybe not quite so limited,

Or we can kind of be with all of them with greater ease and grace,

Because there's simply just another arising in this vast spaciousness.

And they'll fall away,

And something else will arise,

And that will fall away,

And something else will arise.

And there will be this continuity of being,

Of beingness in space.

And within that,

There's always a radiance of our good heart.

So I invite you now to come back to feeling the body,

Feeling the breath,

And if you like,

You can lower the gaze.

Just come back into it,

Just really feel grounded on the earth,

Feel grounded in the body.

Find your good,

Open heart.

And just drop into a moment of appreciating being present,

Being alive in your body,

Being grateful for all these amazing practices that have been passed on to us for millennia by amazing human beings who've dedicated their lives to deepening and awakening and so forth,

Just like yourselves.

So thank you very much for this,

And I wish you good practice as always,

And we'll see you in the next module.

Reviews

A great guided practice, that in simple terms, helped me to broaden the view and explore the inherent spaciousness of mind that is always there:) thank you!

Thank you so much! 😊

Dr. Maull has a calming voice and authenticity which makes it an instructive and pleasant experience