Cultivating a Choiceless Awareness

In this meditation, Dr. Julien Lacaille gently guides you through your experience of breath, body, sounds, thoughts, emotions, to gradually broaden awareness.

Transcript

Bell Bell Bell Bell Bell Bell First let's see if we can allow the body to settle into a kind of stable centered dignified posture. Noticing the stillness. Noticing what it feels like to choose to be still. And as the body settles, Seeing if we can let attention settle on our breathing. Focusing first on a single point in the body where we feel the breath. Noticing if we can catch the arising, So the beginning of an in-breath, The middle of the in-breath and the end of the in-breath. And then see if we can do the same thing with the out-breath. So it's going to just keep happening and then seeing if we can catch with our attention in one place in our body the beginning, The middle and the end of the out-breath. And then see if we can simultaneously do that with the in and the out-breaths. Begin, Beginning, Middle, End, Beginning, Middle, End. Every time we notice we're not paying attention to the sensations of breathing anymore, We can just gently escort the attention back. So just, In other words, Remembering the sensations of breathing. And continuing to notice the arising, The presence and the passing of each in-breath and each out-breath. And second, We're going to start broadening our awareness around that one point in the body where we were noticing breathing and slowly widening the field of our attention to become aware more and more of the whole body sitting here and breathing. Still noticing the arising, The presence and the passing of this breathing, But with a wider perspective, The body as a whole. And as we widen the lens of our attention, Seeing if we can start noticing other sensations than just the breathing. Just kind of like going where, Wherever is most salient in the body, Might be an unpleasant sensation or some other neutral one or maybe even a pleasant one. Just keeping this wide view and noticing the various sensations and seeing if we can notice with those sensations a beginning, A middle, And an end. Not getting stuck on any one particular sensation, But keeping the attention fluid throughout the whole body. Noticing the transience of body sensations. And the half-life of a body sensation may be really, Really short, Like a vibration feeling. The beginning, Middle, End might be just a few milliseconds. And some other ones may be more long, Might be a few seconds. And then now we're going to bring our attention to our ears, The outer left ear and the outer right ear. And then notice that the ears or the outer ears are kind of like satellite dishes. They're shaped in a way to receive sound waves, To capture them. And so slowly becoming more and more aware of the sounds in the environment, In this room or outside of this room, That are traveling towards us, That are reaching the left ear and the right ear, That are being received as sounds. You don't have to go get them. They are already coming to you. Just sitting here receiving sounds. And seeing if it's possible to perceive the sounds just as pure sounds, Over and above the labels we usually give them. Just the pure quality of the sound, The pitch, The rhythm, The spaces in between the sounds, The duration, Almost like we were listening to music. Or perhaps listening or becoming receptive or becoming sensitive to even more subtle sounds or subtle layers of sounds. And with this kind of subtle attention, Seeing if we can pick up the beginning, The middle and the end of any particular sound, Noticing that sounds are not static. They just keep changing from moment to moment. Just like the flow of water in the river is always comprised of different water molecules. This kind of flow of sounds is just comprised of different sound waves. Just noticing that. Now releasing your attention from the sounds and bringing your attention now towards the mind. And then noticing thoughts as mental events that arise, That are present for a moment, And then that pass or transform into something different. Almost as though they were projected on the blank screen of the mind. As though you were sitting in a movie theater looking out at a blank screen, Waiting for the next image to just show up. So what thoughts are passing through the screen of my mind right now? When you notice that you're kind of sucked into a thought or the movie of your mind, Seeing if you can remember that you're a distance away from the thought. You're sitting back watching the screen, And this thought is just a mental sensation. Seeing the flow of thinking. Just being receptive to whatever ends up happening in your mind from moment to moment. Maybe replaying a scene that happened earlier in your day or that might happen later in your day. Maybe noticing judgments. Maybe as words on the screen. Maybe you're noticing the thought, I'm not having any thoughts. Am I doing this right? This is hard. Seeing those is just projections on the screen of your own mind. It's a beginning, There's a middle, And there's an end. And as we stay receptive and become more sensitive to our thoughts, Maybe noticing even more subtle thoughts. Seeing them come, Stay, Go. Being replaced by another thought. Maybe noticing if there's an emotional tone, A feeling tone to certain thoughts. Checking from time to time where that feeling shows up in your body. And if it's an unpleasant feeling, Maybe if there's some aversion there, Tensing up, Pushing away. Just coming back to watching thoughts as thoughts, As mental events, Mental objects. What movies are playing in my mind right now? And can I see them as simply movies for what they are? Simulations. Looking at thoughts rather than from thoughts. And then returning from time to time to the sensations of breathing, If we really get lost, If it's overwhelming, Coming to noticing the arising, The presence and the passing of the breath. When we feel centered and present again and maybe starting again, Noticing what is on the mind right now. And finally, I'm going to invite you to release thoughts or the mind as the object of attention. And in fact, To just release any particular anchor as an object of attention. And to just sit back and observe the flow of your own experience, Whether it be the sensations of your body sitting here, Your posture. That's there. Or whether it be the feeling of breathing in and out in your body. That's another sensation. Or pleasant, Neutral or unpleasant sensations in the body other than the breath. Or the sounds that are there also. Or the mental images or mental sounds. Those are there. Or the linked emotions that show up in the body. Those are also there maybe. Just being open and receptive to whatever is showing up in the flow of your own experience. Observing non-judgmentally whatever comes to the forefront of your awareness. Noticing the arising, The presence and the passing of each thing. If we get lost, Coming back to the breath. Once we are present and centered again, Opening up, Being receptive to just whatever shows up. And including the sound of the bowl now in the field of your awareness as we finish this meditation. The Bell Thank you.

Reviews

One of my all time fave guided meditations - so effective at maintaining present awareness. I especially love my image of the mind as a movie theatre watching thoughts

Awesome

Another perfectly executed guided meditation. Perfect balance between voice and silence. Perfect intervals of focus on and direction to different areas of mind and body and perspective. Wonderful.

Wow - very unique - movie theater image very effective

I'm an anxious meditator; a beginner, and your balance of silence and words was about right. I have a fear of something unknown at this time, and for some reason this choiceless exercise allowed me to be with it somewhat. So thank you.