Awareness In Meditation - Episode 14

Episode 14 of the Nature of Meditation podcast explores Awareness in Meditation.

This episode on Awareness in Meditation explores the two foundational types of awareness in meditation, i.e. Single-Pointed Awareness and Open Awareness, importantly within the context of embodied lived experience. As I explain in this Episode 14, awareness is too abstract a term for meditation, and meditation teachers should be using primarily Phenomenological concepts and language that are conducive to lived human embodied experience.

Nature of Meditation monthly podcast is an exploration of the nature of silent meditation practice. Produced by Ayla Michelle at The Therapy Garden, a BAMBA registered mindfulness and meditation teacher.

Transcript

Hello, My name is Michelle and welcome to Episode 14 on Awareness in Meditation. So let's start with a five minute silent meditation practice to become aware, More aware of our direct embodied experience. Allow yourself to relax as best you can and becoming aware of how you are now. So let's just sit together for five minutes, Becoming aware of our breathing. If that helps as an anchor for your attention and awareness. Becoming aware of your body sitting here. The weight of your body as an object of awareness. And you can just relax now and I will let you know when we've sat for five minutes. So back in the present moment, Feeling a bit more present and aware, I'd now like to guide a meditation for five minutes. And you're invited to become more aware of your body sitting here. So as best you can, Bringing a relaxed attention to your direct embodied experience. And the key to this guided meditation is simply knowing what is going on in any given moment, Being conscious, Present and aware in each moment. So you may be aware of your breathing and you may be aware of your body sitting here, The weight of your body, At the base of your body, Probably in your hips, Pelvis area, The weight of your body seated there. And really feeling into the sensorial experience of your body, The sensations of your body weight, The temperature of your body, The position, Posture and alignment of your body in this moment. Finding a posture that you can feel comfortable to be completely still in that posture, Effortlessly. Effortlessly sitting in embodied experience, Aware of your body sitting here and the awareness is with you. Your awareness is engaged in the experience of you sitting here. Your awareness is you, Being completely absorbed in your experience, Embodied experience of sitting here. And even if thoughts and emotions or whatever distractions may come and go, Their effect and impact is not strong enough to disturb your absorption in your embodied experience. Your embodied experience that is strong, Centred, Stable, Still and solid, Undisturbed by the comings and goings of the heart and mind. Okay, Coming back to the episode teaching. Coming back slowly and retaining our present awareness. So as we turn to an intellectual understanding of awareness in meditation, I invite you to remain aware of your embodied experience. So I'll give a brief overview of what my understanding of awareness is in meditation practice. And then after that, I'll talk about the two foundational types of awareness in meditation. One is called single-pointed awareness and the other is called open awareness. And of course, They're not separate from each other. We move from single-pointed awareness of our breathing and our body. We evolve naturally into a more open awareness that is free and unattached, Uncontrolled, Entirely free. So before I give some intellectual theory on awareness, I'd like to say that in my opinion, The concept of awareness is an overrated concept in the meditation teaching field. And I feel it is overrated because it's an abstract conceptual term. And concepts, Theories, And abstraction are not helpful for meditation. Awareness itself is non-conceptual and is inherently experiential, Liminal, And free. A bit like the air. So it seems a shame, I feel, To take something formless and make it into a thing. So awareness is deeply intertwined with consciousness. With awareness as the expansive space and consciousness more like the content within the space. So awareness itself is open and unending and is just awareness. And sometimes we are conscious of being aware and sometimes we are not conscious of being aware. Sometimes we're caught in less refined, More subconscious, Dream-like states of being. Or I should say more daydream-like states of consciousness. For example, When we get caught in a chain of thoughts or in a memory, A desire, A fantasy, Or daydream. And simply becoming aware of the thought or daydream we're having is its end. The moment you become aware that you're having it, It's over, The thought, The daydream. Because the mind is naturally empty and clear and doesn't actually need constant distraction. So meditation is shifting from identification with thoughts, Feelings, Sensations, To a more pure, Empty awareness, Which is always present beneath the mental, Emotional, And physiological activity. And as I've said, Awareness is deeply intertwined with consciousness. So awareness is engagement with consciousness, Or if you like, The lighting up of consciousness. As it realizes contact. Being aware involves contact, Which is a fundamental phenomenological concept that I would like to make extensive use of in this podcast. And in my view, Meditation teachers need to use phenomenological language that is conducive to direct, Embodied, Lived experience. So for many meditation teachers and practitioners, They see the essence of meditation as awareness. Meditation, They say, Is being aware. But first and foremost, Meditation is embodied. Being aware of your body is to be present, Is to be here. Not in your mind, In some abstract energy, But present in your body, Sitting on the ground or on a chair. So being aware is being aware of something, But we don't get attached to that thing, And we don't identify with that thing. In meditation, Awareness evolves from abiding in an object of awareness to non-abiding. Abiding being the single-pointed awareness and non-abiding being the open awareness. And in advanced, Unified states of meditation, This distinction between subject and object drops away. So you can see, Single-pointed awareness is a more beginning, Intermediate stage of meditation, And open awareness is a more advanced stage of meditation, Where an object and a subject are no longer needed in absorbed states of oneness. So if we must use abstract notions and concepts to understand awareness, A simple way is to understand it as an open, Free and unbounded psychical stream of energy, Which is experiencing the experience, Which is aware of experience. To be awake and alive is to be aware of your lived, Embodied experience in the present moment. Awareness then involves perception and knowledge that something exists or is happening. An experience occurs within awareness and the thing that awareness is aware of are not separate from each other. The object, The subject and awareness itself are inseparable. You can be aware of your body and your awareness of your body is inside awareness. Awareness is not outside of the phenomenon, It is experiencing. And I would say, Based on my own meditation experience, That perception is more active within open awareness meditation and attention is more active within single-pointed awareness meditation. So there's less need to focus one's attention in open awareness that's less contrived. And single-pointed meditation, Which is very much needed before we can open our awareness, Single-pointed meditation, Single-pointed awareness, Really helps us to come into our centre, Into our ground and become still and concentrated. Concentrated being the operative word for single-pointed awareness. And of course, My listeners will know concentrated isn't my favourite word, But concentrated is the word to express what single-pointed awareness really is for, For concentration. And it's with that concentration when we have that stillness, Centredness, Stability, Solidity, Then we're strong enough to be undisturbed. So we become more open because things don't disturb us. Things being thoughts, Feelings, Sensations, Memories, Sounds, Temperature, Whatever it is, We're much less disturbed when we're concentrated and we can become more and more open. So I'll now just talk about single-pointed awareness and then open awareness in turn. So single-pointed awareness focuses on one object of meditation referred to as an anchor. And I've talked about single-pointed awareness in other ways, Using other terms in earlier episodes. So single-pointed or focused awareness is the foundational method, I would say the primary foundational method first, Before open awareness that I would put second. So it's the first method for cultivating concentration and mental stillness and silence. And you may have noticed I used the phrase method, Foundational method. Technique is perhaps too strong a word. Perhaps method is slightly kinder and less scientific than the word technique. But single-pointed focused awareness could be seen as a method for cultivating single-pointed awareness. I say that because when I come to talk about open awareness, We'll see that there is no method for open awareness. So in contrast, One is a method, The other has no method. So again single-pointed awareness is focusing and anchoring one's mind on a single point such as your breathing or your hand or the weight of your body calmly abiding in awareness. And once you're adept at this, You'll no longer need an object of meditation as a support for your attention and awareness. And you'll feel able to simply maintain presence and clarity of experiencing freely. But first we develop single-pointed awareness by focusing the mind to remain present and aware of a single object or anchor of meditation the breathing, Your hand, Your weight. So you select your anchor of meditation, Your object of mind and you focus on it to help bring presence, Stillness and concentration. You direct your attention to your object of mind and maintain that focus and allow your mind to settle on your object of awareness. And each time your mind wanders away from the single point of meditation you notice the distraction without judgment and gently return your attention, Your focus to your anchor, Your single point of mind. And with repetition this act of returning to your single point of consciousness gradually with repetition it builds your concentration and it can lead to more absorbed and unified and free states of consciousness. It leads naturally into open awareness. So for single-pointed meditation, Consistency is key to developing single-pointed awareness and regular practice in this way helps to calm one's mind and reduces mental chatter and of course develops concentration. So now I'll speak a bit about open awareness in meditation. It's sometimes called receptive awareness or choiceless awareness. It's sometimes called unconstructed awareness non-judgmental awareness or detached awareness or bare awareness. It's a natural, Uncontrived, Uncontrolled free and spontaneously arising and departing awareness that is inseparable from experience. Open awareness is being aware of whatever experience arises and passes without any fixed point of consciousness without attachment so you may be aware of a thought, Feeling or sensation that appears in your awareness stays for a while and then passes away and the key here is being open as differentiated from being closed as in single-pointed awareness. So in open awareness it's all good, It's all okay. Whatever is in our focus whatever presents itself in our field of awareness is okay. So it's a less controlled, Less contrived state of consciousness and open awareness is sometimes referred to as spacious mind because it's an awareness that is expansive like a clear open sky it's a goalless or pointless state of consciousness without any method or technique unlike single-pointed awareness that is more of a doing but I don't want to be misleading in that one is any better than the other. We need single-pointed awareness practice first to be settled and in place before we can open up more and become more free and empty. So as I've said open awareness is not a method because it's ungraspable you could say it's a method of no method as Chan Master Shen Yang put it in his book Method of No Method because the mind is already open and spacious the mind is already free in open awareness there's no focus of attention no object of your meditation and no subject the individual self identification ego identification is less relevant, Less active less present there's nothing to grasp onto there's no meditation technique or method cooked up in the past by the Buddha or in recent history by any other Dharna teacher or Zen master open awareness doesn't rely on grasping onto any meditation technique or method or any narratives of what's right or wrong so open meditation is allowing the mind to regain its most natural uncontrived state of consciousness which is silent yet luminous quiescent yet vital the true nature of of the mind so we can say that open awareness is practicing non-abiding a free state of conscious without consciousness, Without focusing or projecting things may appear in awareness but you don't identify with anything open awareness allows experience to arise and pass without attachment and it promotes acceptance and letting go of the need to control experience so in meditation practice to bring the two types of awareness together now coming to the end of this episode in meditation practice we're unfolding from the intentional focus on an anchor or single point of concentration we're unfolding from that concentrated state that is primary and foundational and must be in place first and foremost we're unfolding from that into an opening and allowing our awareness to land wherever it lands and be aware there so we're able to be free in open awareness undisturbed by whatever comes and goes in and out of our awareness but we only have that fearlessness and solidity and absolute presence in open awareness because of the concentration we were able to cultivate within ourself, Within our mind and heart through single pointed concentration single pointed awareness a practice of single pointed awareness so we move from our single point of concentration to a more open awareness and awareness continues to flow freely undisturbed by whatever is going on in one's heart and mind so it's worth pointing out here that the two things are simultaneous one can be still present, Grounded centred, Solid and have thoughts, Feelings sensations at the same time if one is having thoughts, Feelings, Sensations and one is grounded, Centred, Still the thoughts feelings, Sensations don't bother one and they do lessen and diminish when they realise the solidity of mind and the stability of mind is strong they have less power they cannot be effective and one can also to be fair, Be still stable, Solid present and not have experience thoughts, Feelings or sensations one can be inwardly silent and empty as well and one can also have thoughts, Feelings, Sensations and not be centred, Stable present one can be lost in one's thoughts, Feelings fantasies, Daydreams, Worries neuroses so we begin with our anchor our object of our awareness and we gradually open up and let go of the anchor and in time our object of awareness drops away leaving you experiencing without a sense of subject and object and this state of unification or oneness when the subject and object drops away perceiver and things vanish and this is called awakening so summarising at the end of this episode I spoke about two different types of awareness that are linked together and are not separate from each other one is no better or worse than the other they're just different and it's not linear they can co-exist at one and the same time the thing that you're aware of your object of awareness and your open awareness are inseparable your awareness is not outside of you looking at you and your personal lived experience is taking place within awareness within empty space meditation meditation then is the gradual or sudden realisation of liberation comprising emptiness and it's a profound awareness that realises that all phenomena are absent of inherent existence but as a meditation practitioner we cannot come to an open awareness unless we have some understanding of the absolute in which all present phenomena exists so coming to the close of this episode on awareness in meditation coming to a close by being aware of what's going on for you now after an hour of awareness theory are you feeling more relaxed more open or are you in more thinking mode now, Perhaps more into an intellectual mode of being an intellectual state of consciousness so noticing any change in you now after listening to this episode just coming back to yourself in the last minute are you still retaining some awareness of your body it's likely after an experience of thinking that one would feel more disembodied less engaged with one's body so the invitation is here at the end of this episode to come back to your body as the starting point of single pointed awareness that we need, That is essential to be able to become to unfold into openness and from there into emptiness so I hope you found some of this teaching helpful or insightful in some way and thank you for listening so best wishes for your single-pointed awareness that will undoubtedly naturally unfold into open awareness. Bye for now, Speak to you next time.