Opening Awareness — Letting Experience Be Wider

This session is part of the series Learning to Meditate — A Simple Daily Practice. In this practice, you’ll gently expand awareness beyond a single point of focus, allowing sounds, sensations, thoughts, and breathing to be noticed together. Rather than concentrating narrowly, you’ll learn how awareness can become more open and spacious.

Transcript

Hello and welcome everybody. Today's practice session 6 out of 7 learning to meditate series is titled opening awareness, Letting experience be wider. So get yourself settled as you would do normally to come into meditation. And just settle into the moment. Focus on your breath. It's settling in. In earlier sessions we use the body and the breath as anchors for the attention. That's a helpful way to steady the mind and always appropriate. We can always come back to that. But meditation doesn't always need to stay narrow or focused on one thing. In fact it's quite the opposite in many ways. It's the ability to evolve into a much deeper aspect of our being. Sometimes awareness can simply open allowing experience to be noticed as it naturally occurs. Not necessarily having to focus on anything per se but just allowing the experience to be the focus itself. And in this practice we'll explore that gentle widening of awareness where there's nothing to control and nothing to hold on to. Just allowing experience to be a little bit more spacious and allowing yourself to enjoy that. Understanding different aspects of your own being where ultimately what we're meditation is about. So as I said find a comfortable seated position. Lie down if that feels more supportive. And let the body settle naturally. Allow your spine to be upright but relaxed and let the shoulders soften. Gently close your eyes. Begin by noticing the feeling of the body sitting here. Breathing. Being supported. Nothing else. Just that feeling and the awareness of that feeling. Take a few moments to rest your attention here and now in that awareness. Now rather than focusing on something like the breath as we have done or the body, Allow awareness to widen slightly. Just allow your awareness to expand. And open up. You may know sounds and may notice the sounds in the room or sounds further away. You might notice sensations in the body. The movement of the breath or contact with the chair or the floor. Floor. And rather than focus on any one of those things, Just allow them all to be at the same time. Awareness of those things all at once. Thoughts may also appear. Rather than pushing them away or following them, Simply notice that they're a part of the field of experience. They're just another part of the experience. Not more powerful or less powerful. Just an experience unfolding for you. And opening up to that experience. Gently opening up to the experience as it unfolds. Everything can be included here. Breathing, Sounds, Sensations, Thoughts. Allow them all to rise and pass naturally. There's no need to select or reject anything. Awareness is simply open. Allow it to open. Sit with it. If you do notice that attention becomes caught up in thinking again, Gently return to the feeling of the body or the breath for a moment. And then allow awareness to open up once more. I'm just allowing it to open up again. And repeat. So if you notice that the attention becomes caught up in thinking, Gently return to the feeling of the body or the breath for a moment. Then allow awareness to open up once more. And I'm going to leave this with you now for a little while. And as I say, Just gently repeat that process whenever necessary. Let the experience unfold on its own. Life unfolding for you. Just simply be aware of that. Thoughts come. Come back to the breath or awareness. Allow the awareness to unfold again. And as we come to the end of this practice, Notice what it feels like when awareness becomes a little more open. Meditation doesn't require now focus. It's simply the willingness to be present with the whole field of experience. You can practice this openness any time, Sitting quietly, Walking or simply pausing throughout the day. In the final session of this series, We'll explore what it means to sit with whatever arises, Without needing to fix or change it. Thank you for practicing. Come back to the breath or awareness. Coming back now. Coming all the way back now. Thank you once again for joining me. If you know of any one of your friends or family that would feel benefit from learning how to practice meditation, Please pass my name on. Please follow me on Insight Timer to receive the updates that I post there. Once again, Thank you for joining me. Much love. Yogi Felix