Openness In Meditation - Episode 4

Episode 4 of the Nature of Meditation podcast explores the experience of openness in silent meditation practice.

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 accredited, registered and supervised mindfulness teacher.

Transcript

Hello,

My name's Michelle,

And welcome to Episode 4 of the Nature of Meditation podcast.

In this episode,

I'm exploring the experience of openness in silent meditation practice.

So,

As usual,

Let's start with our three-minute silent meditation to help us arrive in our field of awareness in the present moment.

So,

I will be silent now for three minutes and try my best to become more present and aware.

And you're invited to take your seat,

Make yourself comfortable,

And gradually,

Or maybe even instantly,

Coming into your present moment experience.

Back in the present moment,

Hopefully you're feeling more aware now than you were three minutes ago,

More present and aware.

In previous podcasts,

So far,

I've been consciously and intentionally turning our attention inwards and resting our attention on our anchor.

And that anchor may be the sensations of our breathing,

Our chest and abdomen naturally rising and falling in each moment.

So,

In meditation proper,

There's no judgment and no discrimination and no duality.

So now,

Instead of intentionally focusing inwards,

We're going to turn our attention outwards towards openness.

And we're going to explore the actual space of our field of awareness.

The vast,

Unbounded field of awareness that our sensations,

Emotions,

Perceptions,

And all of our experience is occurring within and moving through.

So,

So far in the podcast,

In the first three episodes,

We have been turning our attention inwards.

And now,

In this episode four,

We're going to be non-dualistic and hopefully more balanced and whole and turn our attention outwards towards openness.

So,

In practicing open awareness,

Instead of focusing and concentrating on one specific reference point,

The anchor point of our meditation,

Such as our breathing or our hands or a mantra,

Instead of focusing our attention on our anchor,

Our attention is open and unattached to anything.

So,

We're not using an anchor when practicing open meditation.

Now,

I know,

I know the practice of mindfulness is extremely popular these days,

Which is the reason why I'm focusing on meditation.

But I would like to explain openness in such a way to help mindfulness practitioners approach,

Understand,

And practice openness.

So,

In mindfulness practice,

We can think of it as,

Or we can understand it as creating openness by using our anchor,

Our reference point.

Using our reference point to help us bring our attention back to the present moment so that we can create space for observation,

Space for open observation.

So I don't want to get too much into specific technicalities of practice,

But as you can see,

There's different ways you can view openness,

Different ways you can approach openness,

Different ways you can practice openness.

So perhaps,

To be fair,

I would suggest if you're in the habit of using an anchor as a reference point,

Use that method,

Continue using that meditation method.

And coming to understand the reason why you're using an anchor is to help you be present so that you can create open space.

So being present is here synonymous with being open.

So we can create open space by being with whatever's present in our open field of awareness and being present to experience whatever's present without needing to create any boundary,

Discrimination,

Judgment,

Or duality.

So openness is going beyond duality.

It's about undoing,

Softening,

Surrendering,

And opening.

Going beyond any discomfort,

Misery,

Any suffering and shrinking from unpleasant experience in the present moment.

So openness involves and includes going beyond negative experience because in openness,

Everything is included,

Positive and negative.

And in open awareness,

We're living an unbounded and unknown life,

Not just aware of the products of our body,

Heart,

Mind,

But in contact with the actual field of awareness itself.

So openness is our true nature that is always present.

It's prior,

Before,

Behind,

Beneath,

The innermost of you.

And it's always here and now,

Inside you and outside of you.

And it's always here and always now,

As well as your resistance,

Avoidance,

Rejection,

Denial,

Grasping,

Striving,

Etc.

And so on.

Openness includes your imagining,

Fantasizing,

Remembering,

Forgetting,

And also just being zoned out.

So openness is what remains when the individual ego-identity falls open and everything that's false and artificially constructed falls away,

Leaving nothing but awareness of true nature.

So openness then is an innate,

Inborn character trait.

And psychology researchers,

Such as me in my former profession,

We measure openness in quantitative and qualitative research.

So it is an inborn character trait that some individuals have more of and some individuals have less of.

But everyone has openness to some extent.

And of course,

Nature and knowledge can be learned to some extent as well.

And I guess that's what we're doing here now,

We're in this episode,

We're learning,

Maybe even beginning to train ourselves to be more open.

So as well as being an inborn character trait,

Openness can also be viewed as an attitude,

A quality of being,

A way of being.

A way of being that allows you to give space to things and appreciate spaciousness.

Not necessarily appreciate spaciousness,

But more to just be spacious yourself.

Because openness isn't something separate and apart from you.

Openness is you already.

Physicists have taught us many decades ago that,

Maybe centuries,

Who knows,

That there's more space inside us than matter and in the universe.

So in open awareness meditation practice,

Openness is a state of being aware of everything that's happening without getting caught in any particular sensation,

Thought,

Feeling,

Without getting caught in any particular experience.

So you are open and experience whatever thought,

Feeling,

Sensation arises in your field of awareness without resistance or judgment or discrimination.

Essentially,

Creating spacious awareness allows you to observe all your inner experience without getting caught in any specific content.

And it's about being receptive to momentary experience without trying to be caught in or needing to control it in any way.

So openness is being non-reactive and non-attaching to your moment-to-moment experience.

Being open to being aware of anything happening in each moment.

Just being present and aware of whatever's happening in that moment.

So your observations are non-reactive and non-directive,

Non-discriminative and non-judgmental.

And instead of trying to push away negative experiences and strive for and cling to positive experiences,

You simply observe all experiences as they come and go through your open field of awareness.

So openness is a spacious,

Unconditional,

Accepting and embracing awareness.

I'll just rephrase that,

Maybe flip that sentence around the other way.

Awareness is a spacious,

Accepting,

Unconditional openness.

So openness,

As I'm describing it now,

Is awareness without judgment,

Without discrimination.

I cannot say openness and awareness are synonymous,

But if we take awareness and remove all discrimination and judgment,

I think it's fair to say we're left with openness.

So a very common metaphor,

Naturalistic metaphor,

Is when the wave is no longer the wave,

But the water of the ocean itself.

So you can imagine your psyche as a vast,

Open space where thoughts,

Feelings,

Sensations appear and dissolve freely.

And openness happens when the wave realizes that it is the ocean.

And another metaphor based on nature is the opening of a flower.

So I want to now read a paragraph from Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh on a section of a paragraph that he's named,

Letting the Light In.

So beginning his quote,

The meditator breathes in and says,

Hello,

My dear,

My anger,

My despair.

I will take good care of you.

The moment you recognize a feeling and smile to it with love and care,

Embracing the feeling with mindfulness,

It will begin to change.

It's like the morning sunlight shining on a lotus flower.

The bud has not yet opened,

But as the sunlight pours down,

The photons penetrate into the bud.

And after just one or two hours of being penetrated by light,

The flower opens itself.

End quote.

So from this paragraph on the opening of a lotus flower,

We can see that the moment we recognize a feeling,

Sensation,

Thought,

Recognize it with love and care,

Without judgment,

Rejection,

Discrimination,

Accepting and embracing it for what it is,

Positive or negative.

Then that acceptance and recognition is transformative.

And your very field of awareness begins to change.

So awareness here is essential for opening and awakening.

And openness reveals itself when awakening takes place.

And it is revealed to be all that remains when the discriminating self falls away.

And you're able to meet and experience life as openness and from openness.

Because you've become the ocean,

You are openness.

So when I am talking now about awareness,

Awakening and realizing,

I'm talking about your field of awareness.

So being able to welcome,

Accept anything,

Any experience,

Feeling,

Thought,

Sensation,

Fantasy,

Memory,

Trauma.

Being able to experience anything coming into and out of your field of awareness.

And also discovering things outside of your field of awareness.

Things that you don't know.

Things that are unexpected and different.

Things that are difficult.

Things that you don't want and don't like.

And things that you didn't know.

So in open awareness,

All experience is observed as openness to whatever arises and falls away.

So it's not really possible to practice openness.

Because openness is much bigger and greater than our mind.

So we can turn our attention towards openness.

And openness itself can reveal itself to us.

In my experience,

It's more that openness reveals itself to us than us doing anything to get there,

To experience it.

Openness reveals itself once the individual ego has simply fallen away in that moment.

Surrender has instantaneously,

Automatically,

Naturally happened in the moment.

And I suppose surrender implies letting go of any fear,

Anxiety.

And when I say letting go of any fear and anxiety,

I suppose I mean fear of oneness,

Fear of love,

Fear of connection.

And if I wanted to introduce religious connotations,

We could say fear of being one with the universe,

Fear of being one with God.

So we cannot do anything to open up or wake up ourselves.

It just happens of its own accord.

And there's no doing in it.

You can't do something in order to create a state of openness or cause yourself to experience a state of awakening.

It's not a cause and effect mechanism.

It's not materialistic or mechanistic.

It's not determined.

It is momentary.

It is universal.

And unconditional.

So you can't do openness.

But as a beginner,

You can start to turn your attention towards openness in the present moment.

But without having a goal of becoming open.

And as I've already explained using my Zen Master's teaching,

Openness happens in the same way as a better flower opens.

You can't force it to happen.

You can't force a flower to open.

But you can turn towards it like a flower.

Like a flower.

Turning towards the sun.

Turning towards the sun.

So that it can open and bloom.

And it's a natural process that requires the sunshine of conscious attention.

Requires an unconditional inclusive attention.

To both positive and negative experience.

And being open doesn't mean that experiences don't arise.

Of course,

Experience continues to arise and fall away.

In each moment.

Sensations,

Emotions,

Thoughts,

Feelings.

Fantasies,

Memories,

Traumas.

A backlog from the past.

And expectations and worries.

Fantasies and hopes of the future.

But it's okay that all this experience is flowing through your open field of awareness.

Because we are openness and awareness itself.

We are all our experiences.

So it's okay that they can be encountered.

And understood as openness.

Which is the reason why they're freely coming and going.

Freely coming and going from the past and the future.

So we can say that openness is timeless.

Is unbounded and timeless.

Where past,

Present and future flow into one another through each other.

Interact with each other.

In an organic,

Dynamic,

Natural way.

And all experiences can be met as openness.

As a homecoming.

Our past experiences coming home.

Our future experiences coming home.

And our present experiences coming home.

And they're not coming home without us knowing.

Because we are practising present moment awareness.

So all of our experiences can be seen.

Just for what they are.

And often times it can be seen that these experiences can be seen to be an illusion.

Just as a separate individual self can be seen.

To be an illusion in the experience of openness.

So openness is experiencing life in the present moment just as it is.

Just as it happens to be right now.

For example,

My tone of voice dropping into deeper tones.

And when I'm speaking about flowers.

My tone of voice rising into much higher,

Softer tones.

My tone of voice being more mature and adult in the deeper tones.

And my tone of voice being much more childlike in the higher tones.

My thought processes being more present in the deeper tones.

And my emotions being more present in the higher tones of voice I use.

So,

Aware of experiencing everything as it is.

With a quality of openness.

And there's no sticking place.

Just spontaneous,

Fresh experiences passing through.

And we're neither rejecting experience.

For example,

Thinking I shouldn't be thinking that.

Or I shouldn't be feeling.

I shouldn't be doing this.

I shouldn't be doing that.

Nor are we giving our experience a landing place.

So,

Experience is just moving through us.

Because we can accept ourselves as openness.

And not only a cultural,

Social or religious being.

Or generational,

Or economic or political.

So,

We are openness.

And in openness,

All experiences tend to flow by.

And if the experience is real,

Then it is felt.

It has impact upon all of your being,

Your whole being.

And it has an aliveness and feels alive.

But if an experience is indeed an illusion and not real.

Then it has nothing to hook onto or hook into.

And it has nowhere to land.

And it will not be able to stay with you or be with you.

I should say that the other way around.

If it's not real,

It won't be able to be.

It will be revealed as an illusion.

Whether that revelation takes moments,

Minutes,

Days,

Weeks,

Months.

And decades,

And of course centuries as well.

To come into the light of awareness.

So,

All experiences in the present moment are in open space.

And open space,

As I've already said,

Is unconditional and kind.

And it doesn't have any violence in it.

Neither the violence of rejection and denial.

Nor the violence of striving and grasping onto something.

Including trying to grasp onto openness itself.

So openness is not knowing.

In that we open to unexpected and unknown experience.

And because we're not judging and discriminating.

We have no preconceived expectation about what our experience ought to be.

So we're open in an unknown field of experiencing.

And we can have the courage to allow any experiences,

Whatever they are.

To come closer.

To come into our field of awareness.

And as I've said,

We can use our present moment awareness.

To create space in our field of awareness.

So paradoxically,

By focusing on an anchor point.

Paradoxically,

That creates space around the object that you're focusing on.

So by focusing on one specific object of experience.

Whether it be a sensation of breathing.

Your hands.

A mantra.

Some beads in your hand.

By focusing on one object,

Paradoxically,

It creates spaciousness around it.

All around the object.

And a space,

An open space,

Is an empty space.

And it can also be said to be a transition.

A doorway.

Or a new thing.

So being open to something unknown.

A new experience occurring in your field of awareness.

An open awareness is a flowing awareness.

Being freely aware in the transient flow of experience.

Aware of your thoughts,

Feelings,

Sensations,

Etc.

Without getting involved or caught or lost in them.

And all of your experiences having a quality of detachment.

All of your experiences being detached and freely flowing.

I'm talking about freely flowing.

Of course,

The positive psychology concept of flow that we see in creative artwork.

And in any work that is natural and true.

In any play.

In any activity.

And any stillness that is natural and true.

We see this flow.

And positive psychology understand it as a positive mental state or experience.

That improves and enhances one's performance and sense of well-being.

And the person experiencing this flow is so completely being in the moment.

And they're so present.

That they almost become the experience itself.

And again,

There's no self-consciousness because that has fallen away.

And they're just in the flow of pure being.

And indeed,

They can be so present and aware of their experience.

That they're just continuously present.

Continuously,

Seamlessly present.

Present.

So that the awareness is continuously flowing.

Without any fissure.

Or without any cut,

Without any break.

So we can see that the concept of flow in the field of positive psychology converges with the concept of openness.

Spaciousness.

It can converge with the concept of emptiness as well.

Which has just now occurred to me in this moment.

Well,

If I'm honest,

Not right now in this moment.

It occurred to me.

I guesstimate.

Let's,

For the sake of an argument,

Say five minutes ago.

While I was recording this.

That I will make the next episode on the subject of emptiness.

Because emptiness converges on the subject of openness,

Spaciousness and flow.

Okay,

So I'm just flicking through my notes here because a lot of it sounds very repetitive.

And I've probably repeated myself many times in this episode.

So let's end this episode now with some open space for silent meditation practice.

I think that's a nice idea.

Well,

I shouldn't say idea,

That's the wrong word.

And I shouldn't say nice because we want to welcome all experience.

Pleasant and unpleasant.

So let's have at least three minutes,

Maybe five minutes of silent meditation practice.

Before closing this episode.

So coming to the close of this episode on openness.

And I hope you find some of this teaching insightful or helpful in some way.

Thank you for listening.

I'll say bye for now.

And I'll say thank you for the revelation of.

The next topic of which will be emptiness in meditation.

So I will look forward to creating that episode for you.

Have a good present moment.

Bye for now.