Open Awareness

This is a practice based on visualization that takes you to connect with the impermanence of your thoughts, moving beyond and above the limitations imposed by them. As you reach the infinite space of awareness, you allow yourself to nurture the sensation of infinite possibilities and opportunities. I hope you enjoy it!

Transcript

As I said,

This is the open awareness meditation.

It's a trip towards the infinite possibilities and capabilities of our mind and of ourselves.

So ring the bell.

As always,

We start by finding ourselves in a comfortable position.

The ones who know me,

I don't care if you're sitting,

Laying down,

Or sitting on a couch,

Or sitting on a floor,

As long as you're comfortable and awake,

That's all that matters to me.

The most comfortable as possible for you.

So if you're sitting on a chair,

Just make sure your feet are flat on the ground.

You can feel the ground beneath your feet.

If you're laying down,

Make sure that your palms are facing up.

If you're sitting on the floor,

Just rest your arms and hands on your knees or on your lap.

Make sure that you're stable.

Straighten your spine and take a deep inhale.

And a soft and gentle exhalation.

When you inhale,

Just do that wiggle on your chair or on your cushion,

Just to make sure you're stable.

In your spine,

Align with your face and just let the breath go.

As you let it go,

You notice a downward movement.

It's relaxation.

My teacher says that it's when you feel you have arrived.

Deep inhalation.

A soft and long exhalation through your mouth.

Exhale through your nose.

And exhale through your mouth.

A couple more.

Deep inhalation.

Open your chest.

It makes it easier for the air to come in and also gives you a dignified posture.

Helps with self-esteem.

And let go through your mouth.

Once more,

Deep inhalation.

Through your nose and let go through your mouth.

As you let go,

You just finally got here,

That site of relief.

And now breathe normally through your nose.

If you choose to leave your eyes open,

That's okay,

Just don't focus on anything.

If you'll leave it closed,

Gently closed,

Breathe through your nose,

Softly and gently.

And exhale through your nose,

Softly and gently.

A soft and gentle inhalation.

And a soft and gentle exhalation.

If you still feel you're not comfortable,

You can make adjustments as you breathe.

No problem.

Just make sure you're stable and comfortable.

Inhale just enough for a shallow inhalation.

And exhale gently and softly.

This part of meditation is important because it helps not only to calm down your mind and relax your body,

But also it connects them both in harmony.

It balances them in the same frequency.

So that's how you connect your mind and body to begin exploring further your meditation.

So a gentle inhalation.

And a gentle exhalation.

Mind,

Sensations,

Feelings will try to distract you.

That's okay.

Just bring your attention back to the breathing.

As you breathe,

Not so much for the action of breathing,

But the sensation of the air in your body.

You can choose one sensation as we like to do,

The tip of the nose,

The air touching the tip of your nose,

Giving that tingling sensation,

Or the cold air touching the back of your throat,

You might feel it more than the tip of the nose.

Or even a physical response to breathing,

Such as the body up and down,

Up as you inhale and down as you exhale,

Just so you can choose whichever you want,

Whichever you feel more comfortable with.

That's your home base.

That's the place you're going to go back every time you feel distracted.

So breathe slowly,

Gently and shallowly.

Just enough breathing.

And as you feel distracted,

You return to the home base,

To the feeling that you chose to pay attention to.

Let's stay here for a while,

Calling our mind,

Gaining control of our body and connecting both.

Let's stay here for a while.

If you feel you cannot hold your attention to the home base you chose to,

That's okay,

That's not a problem,

You can choose another home base if you want to.

Or if any of those three home bases don't work for you,

You can choose the sensation of your hands or sensations of your feet touching the ground,

Any kind of sensation is good for a home base.

You acknowledge the distraction,

You say to yourself,

I'm distracted,

And return to the home base.

Home base is the place where you relax your attention,

Where you take care of your attention for a vacation,

So you leave it there.

Doesn't need to waste any energy,

Paying attention to anything else,

Just relax,

Just settle down.

Breathe slowly and gently.

Just enough breathing.

The first stop of our trip towards open awareness is acknowledging that our thoughts many times limit our actions.

We're guided by our thoughts.

You can slowly and gently bring your attention to your thoughts and you will notice that with clarity,

We practiced clarity before without attaching yourself to the thought or engaging.

Just notice how thoughts come and go.

I'm sure thoughts you had a minute before,

They're not there anymore,

They've gone.

As you keep breathing softly and gently and slowly.

As you inhale exhale.

You notice that your thoughts,

They jump here and there,

They don't stay forever.

It is commonly said that thoughts are like clouds in the sky,

They come and go.

As you notice your thoughts,

Try to imagine them as clouds in the sky.

Just imagine them coming and going,

Zigzagging in the sky.

One cloud goes,

Another one comes.

As you softly and gently breathe.

Now any thought you might use,

It can be a memory,

It can be the sound of my voice,

It can be anything.

Make yourself aware of your thoughts,

They exist,

But just make it aware,

Don't engage with it,

There's no need to engage with your thoughts.

You can do the noting that we learned,

If you're thinking about something you have to do and you feel anxious about it,

Just sit yourself,

Feeling anxious and just let go.

At this point you come to realize that no matter what your thoughts are,

The sky is still the same.

Your thoughts are like the clouds,

The clouds might bring storm,

It might bring rain or snow or whatever,

Whatever they do,

Whatever they come,

The sky stays the same,

It doesn't change,

The sky doesn't change.

And the sky is the awareness of the mind,

It's the potential,

It's the whole mind itself.

You can have a sunny sky and then a cloud comes,

But the sky is still sunny,

It doesn't change.

Whenever the cloud goes,

You can see the sun,

That's how it works.

So let us take our mind towards the next step,

Towards open awareness,

Which is just like when you take a plane and you fly a plane in a cloudy sky and you see the plane going through the clouds and then when it gets to a higher position above the clouds,

You can see the blue sky above and the cloud below.

Try to gently and slowly bring that image to you,

Just make this trip,

Just moving yourself from the place that you are right now,

Bringing your mind upwards,

Upwards,

Upwards.

You'll see the clouds which are your thoughts and then you go beyond the thoughts,

Beyond the clouds,

Above the clouds and when you look up there are no clouds anymore,

It's just an infinite sky.

I personally like the sensation of this image.

The clouds below,

The blue sky,

Infinite blue sky above,

Infinite possibilities,

Infinite space,

You can do whatever you want,

Be whatever you want.

There are nothing there to limit your potential,

To limit your will,

To do things,

To be who you want to be.

As you're still breathing slowly and gently,

Just enough,

Just enough.

Be there,

Be at the sky,

Just take some time there to explore around and below,

See the clouds which are the thoughts below,

Coming and going without your interference,

They will just pass you by.

They have their life of their own and they will come and go and you look around,

Sideways and upwards,

There's nothing just the empty void of possibilities,

The emptiness that promises you that you can do whatever you want,

Be whoever you want.

Breathe gently,

Soft and gently.

As you see yourself up in the sky,

Admire the magnificent infinite sky,

The field of awareness that belongs to you.

Just make yourself at home.

Looking at the sky,

Looking at the clouds,

The Congo,

You know,

Whatever is going down there,

It's not up to you.

Make yourself at home,

Feel at peace,

Feel as you know,

The sense of belonging.

That's what I try to accomplish when I meditate on open awareness,

Is the sense of belonging,

I belong here.

I belong in this infinite sky of possibilities.

Make the sensation of high potential,

Infinite possibilities,

Infinite opportunities towards yourself,

The feeling that you can do anything,

Whatever is happening is happening below you and it's not affecting you at all.

Those clouds down there,

They make it rain,

They make it snow,

Whatever,

I'm above them.

So the kind of completely Rainy Mountains adventurers like to share.

So,

There's one part of meditation which is the nurturing.

Nurture this moment,

Nurture this sensation inside you.

This feeling of high potential inside you and nurture it so it grows inside you.

It grows day after day.

And every time you feel threatened by the clouds above,

By your thoughts,

By your inner critic or whatever,

You know that you have the higher sky to go to which is nurture inside yourself where you can do this traveling experience that we've done through meditation.

It's yours to take.

Nurture it.

Now gently,

Slowly,

Start to let's bring ourselves down from the image that we have in our head,

In our mind as we lower ourselves to the ground,

Pass by the clouds which are the thoughts and feelings and sensations that go through our mind.

We pass by,

It is as if the plane is about to land so we go through the clouds,

We see the ground which is where we are physically grounded.

So,

And slowly and gently we arrive at the place that we are seated or laying down with the feeling that we nurture inside that brings us that certainty that we are capable,

We have infinite capabilities.

And we return to the home base slowly and gently as we breathe and we notice the home base is still there,

The sensation of the breath in our body,

We have a body,

The body,

We feel it,

We can feel it through the breath.

We feel the home base as we breathe gently and slowly,

We feel our body and our mind is still connected but the sensation inside us is a little bit different because of our,

Because of the images and the visualization that we did.

Let's stay here for a while just to calm down,

Just to root ourselves back.

If you are sitting on a chair just bring your attention to the feet touching the ground,

Notice the ground touching your feet and vice versa.

If you are sitting on a cushion notice your hands touching your legs and your legs touching the floor.

If you're laying down notice your body touching the floor,

The contact of your body.

Now gently and slowly bring your attention back to the breathing,

Take a deep inhalation,

Straighten your body,

Straighten your muscles,

You know move your shoulders,

Your head,

You can move your fingers,

I like to wiggle my fingers.

Take another deep inhalation still with your eyes closed and slowly and gently start opening your eyes,

Open your eyes,

Slowly get used to the light,

The colors,

The environment,

The people around you.

Welcome back,

I hope this has been a good experience for you,

You can do this meditation anytime,

I like this meditation a lot,

It really expands my vision of the world or vision of myself,

You know gives me more optimism towards myself and everything else.

It's a very good meditation,

I hope you enjoyed it,

I really enjoyed meditating with you all today and enjoy the rest of the day,

It's sunny outside,

Beautiful,

Tomorrow and Wednesday promises to be beautiful and I hope I'll see you on Wednesday,

Alright,

Good to see you,

Namaste,

Thank you so much,

Bye.