The Powerful Practice Of Sky Gazing

When your mind feels frantic or frazzled, try sky gazing. In this talk, Cara explains how to open your mind with a simple micro-practice called sky gazing. Not only does sky gazing offer us a glimpse into our natural sense of clarity, this practice also invokes a sense of awe. According to studies at UC Berkeley, experiencing awe expands our perception of time and enhances our sense of wellbeing. When you’re feeling fixed and closed, take a few minutes to open your mind. Try sky gazing out a window or, better yet, get outside. This micro-practice can be done day or night. Listen to the end for a short, guided practice led by Cara.

Transcript

Hey everyone,

Welcome back to these short little bursts of inspiration,

Education,

Ways to elevate your mood,

Expand your mind,

And get back to the business of living your life.

Today I want to talk to you about skygazing.

Skygazing is a fantastic micro practice.

A micro practice is a short practice,

Something you can do throughout the day,

Something you can do anytime,

Anywhere that you don't need special equipment for and you don't necessarily need special education for.

Most of the micro practices that I offer are common sense.

They're things that we know but maybe forget to do.

So today's micro practice,

Skygazing,

Is really about expanding your mind.

So much of what I talk about is to help you,

Me,

Get out of our heads.

We spend way too much time in our thinking,

Judging,

Doubting,

Fearing,

Regretting mind.

We get sucked into this pool of just mental patterns,

Repetitive thinking,

And it suffocates us.

So to have these short little practices at our fingertips is a really useful way to live and it's an incredible way to optimize your time,

To optimize your state of being.

So hang on till the end of this talk and I'll guide you through a short skygazing micro practice.

So you can see in people's eyes throughout the day,

If you start to notice this sort of spinning sense of being,

This hazy sense where most of us,

You know,

We're just stuck in our busy mind.

We're overwhelmed,

We're over informed,

We feel jagged and frazzled.

And what can we do quickly to get ourselves out of that inefficient,

Ineffective,

And very disconnected way of living back into a more expansive,

Open,

Available way of being?

So how do we get out of our head,

Get into our body,

Get back to our life,

And live in what I like to call this flow state,

Right?

This flow state of being where we think less,

We experience more,

We're better,

We're more connected with one another.

We are able to listen to the environment,

Both inner and outer environment.

So how can we do this?

Well,

There's this Tibetan Buddhist practice based in the tradition of Dzogchen,

Which is called skygazing.

And skygazing takes the premise that we can expand our awareness by taking in the expansiveness of the sky,

Whether it be the night sky,

The morning sky,

The daytime sky,

A little piece of sky out your office window,

Or out in the woods type of sky,

Up on a mountain,

At the beach sky,

It doesn't matter.

The sky is the sky.

And when we can access it,

When we can remember that it's there for us all the time,

We can use the sky as a tool to help us get out of our small mind and our fixed mindset into a more expansive and growth mindset or opportunistic mindset,

Where we can take in the fullness of the moment and not just what our little thinking,

Busy,

Scrambling mind may be trying to figure out.

Your natural state of openness and clarity,

That natural state that I talk about in my book On the Verge,

That natural state is available always.

It is always right here,

Just like the sky.

So in this tradition of Dzogchen,

Of this Tibetan Buddhist practice,

The sky is the reminder,

Is our reminder that our natural state is always available,

Just below the static of our busy thinking mind.

So we'll walk through this practice together,

But it is so practical,

And it is so available to us all at any time.

I love this quote from Novak Knudsen.

He wrote,

Actually,

He wrote,

Yeah,

So if you can picture a bird in a cage,

Locked in a cage,

And he simply says,

Hint,

The cage is not locked.

We think the cage is locked.

We think that we're locked into this way of thinking and being,

That we're locked into this busy,

Crazy,

Busy mindset,

This speed of life that's happening out there.

We think that that is the default,

That that's the way we have to live.

It's simply not the case.

Once we start to jump out of that cage,

We start to see and recognize that the door is always open,

That we can free ourselves from this crazy,

Busy mentality and access the freedom and the natural state that is just waiting for us below that level of busyness.

Then we can really set ourselves free.

So this sky gazing practice is just a reminder.

It's a reminder that any time,

Anywhere,

You can grab,

Not even grab,

I don't nix that,

Scratch that.

We don't want to grab the sky.

We want to allow ourselves to melt up into the expansiveness of the sky that's always there,

Even if we can only catch a little piece of it.

So by giving ourselves that time in this micro practice of a few minutes to pause,

We allow ourselves the opportunity to settle,

To settle the busyness.

So the metaphor of the muddy waters often used to give ourselves that different perspective of our busy thinking mind and what we can see.

When we're thinking and so busy scrambling in our thought patterns,

We become the muddy water.

We can't see through the muddy water,

But giving ourselves a few moments to settle and pause,

It allows that muddy water for our busy mind to settle.

And when we do that and when the muddy water settles,

We see more clearly right through,

Right through the water,

We see more clearly.

So looking at the sky can do just that for us.

It can elicit that sense of clarity,

That sense of openness and availability.

It can help us to burn through any stuckness,

Any fixedness,

And allow ourselves to just settle in our natural openness,

In our natural clarity,

And also in our natural sense of awe.

I love this word awe,

The sense of awe,

Openness,

Awe-inspiring,

Awesome,

Right?

So let's play with this,

Even during the day,

Even if it's in a piece of sky out the window in your office,

You can allow yourself to be in a state of awe,

Catching the sky,

Expanding your mind.

Studies out of Stanford conclude that when in awe,

We expand our perception of time.

We allow ourselves to think bigger than we can when we're stuck in thought.

When we're in the sense of awe,

It elicits an enhanced sense of well-being as well.

When we open our mind to the expansiveness of what's out there,

We open our mindset to the possibilities.

And we may see life from different perspectives than we would when fixed at our laptop or when fixed in our judgments.

So there it is,

Simple sky-gazing practice can help us get out of our own way,

Get out of our head,

Get back into this moment,

This precious and awesome moment,

And it can help us to shift our perspective in a matter of minutes.

So let's do this together.

Let's find a piece of sky,

Whether it be huge or just a small little square out your window.

And let's together take it in,

Melt away any stuckness or sense of busyness,

And open ourselves up to having an awe-inspiring experience.

Reviews

Great talk. I’ve been sky gazing since I was a small child and can remember the joy and peace it brought me. I continue enjoying this practice. I love to observe the passing of the clouds. It brings me back to the present and grateful for all that I have around me. Thanks for your insights about this micro practice.🙏🏽

Such a lovely and easy practice, will use often with a smile on
my face to remember how precious this life is!! 🌸🙏

The sky has always been a fixation and awesome thing for me...now another helpful tool for me...thank you!

Tickled to have a name to put on something I already enjoy doing! Thank you

So beautiful & helpful. Thank you!

Sky gazing what a wonderful practice every morning and throughout the day and most every evening I have always looked in all up towards the sky thank you for this gift I will now skygaze and meditation

Found this to be a confirmation in what i was intuitively led to be guided by in my own life. In awe of the early morning sky as the stars still shown brightly. Seeing venus in the east and last week mars near the 1/2 moon at night while i was gazing at our vast universe. Thank you for your articulation in what we would all benefit from every day and/or night. 🌷

I really loved this. I have always been fascinated with the sky and I’m fortunate to live in a part of the world where we are frequently treated to exquisite sky scenes. Still, I never knew this was an actual practice and I am most grateful for the reminder to use this as a form of micro practice. I need this now more than ever! 🙏🏻

Awe inspiring:) Look at the sky more often and a little different now.

so that’s the fundamental force/flow within nature... and that constitutes our deep deep love of Earth/Nature... i see it! i feel it! and even and especially all that is the Cosmos... beyond... you have just gifted us with no less than Interconnectivity and Infinity... stargazing, skygazing where one is instantly outside themselves !!!

thank you so much... i love your voice your guidance your achieved balance

Susy and Jay in southern Oregon. new stargazers. my husband is a buddhist, and yet we have not heard of this.

Thank you “the cage is open”

A lovely reminder of a micro practice that can be done anytime, anywhere. Thank you🌸

Very interesting talk on one of my favorite activities. Thank you. 🙏🏽

This is something I do on a daily basis, but it was so nice listening to this and hearing about the benefits and how it can truly change a busy and hectic day....just by stopping and appreciating a few moments with nature, gazing at the sky. Thank you!