Hello,
Friends.
Open awareness is a non-referential meditation,
Meaning we don't use any reference point such as the breath or the body to help keep our minds focused.
Those reference points are useful at first,
But later they can hold us back.
In open awareness meditation,
You go beyond sitting in mindfulness and expand your meditation to embrace your daily life.
The practice of openness can feel unfamiliar at first because our minds are so habituated to contracting around our problems,
Our storylines,
Our ideas.
But the more you practice,
The more you realize that openness is actually your natural state and contraction is the source of our suffering.
Openness then is the key to your freedom.
Once you get the hang of open awareness,
You can practice it anywhere,
Anytime without preparation.
But initially,
It helps to slow down the racing mind with a few minutes of sitting meditation,
A referential meditation or shamatha.
So let's begin with that.
It helps to be in a spacious room or somewhere that will allow you to look out upon an open vista or a pleasant window.
If that's not possible right now,
No worries.
If you wear glasses,
Take them off.
Take your seat and center yourself in your body and your breath.
Start by closing your eyes to help gather your mind.
If something distracts you,
Simply notice the distraction,
Label it thinking,
And return to your body and your breath.
Once you feel settled,
Gently open your eyes,
But keep your gaze down.
Let your visual field be unfocused.
Then slowly raise your gaze until you're looking directly ahead.
Notice how your eyes tend to stick to things during this transition.
In this meditation,
You're going to use your physical eyes to work with your mind's eye.
Our eyes tend to be sticky because the mind is sticky.
And as you become more practiced with open awareness,
You might notice a change in this visual stickiness.
So once you're looking straight ahead,
Relax and open your visual field by focusing on the periphery.
This centralizes your gaze,
Inviting a quality of receptivity,
A sense that the mind can accommodate whatever arises.
You're using your body,
Your eyes to work with your mind.
And notice how this open visual field invokes an openness of the mind.
If you find yourself closing down and focusing on an object in front of you,
That's okay.
Just observe that and then return to relaxing the focus.
If something moves in your visual field and grabs your attention,
Just notice and let it go.
Relax and open,
Relax and open.
That is the simple,
Beautiful mantra of this meditation.
Let your jaw relax and drop open.
From the outside,
You might look a little bit like a fish.
It's a posture of openness.
The next step is to drop the reference points of body and breath.
If something distracts you,
You no longer return to your body or breath.
You're shifting here from referential meditation to non-referential.
From shamatha to open awareness.
So cut the anchor and allow your mind to drift to whatever arises.
If you're drawn to a sound,
Allow your mind to alight on the sound.
Let your mind go to the sound,
But without running commentary on it.
Without attaching a proliferation of thoughts about the sound,
Or the smell,
Or whatever it is that arises.
Let your mind lightly touch it without sticking to it.
And pay attention to what you feel.
What do you notice in your body as you start to open up?
Does the sensation of openness feel inviting or threatening?
Is there part of you that doesn't want to feel too open or vulnerable?
Just notice your feelings without judging them.
We're practicing self-observation without judgment.
If you do get swept away,
Rest lightly on that.
Let your mind notice the thoughts without indulging them,
And then let them go.
The invitation here is to mix your mind with space,
But without spacing out.
As you loosen your contractions,
It's easy to slip from spaciousness into spaciness.
If you find yourself spacing out,
Briefly tighten your posture and refocus your gaze for a moment.
If you're really zoning out or feeling stale,
You can stand up for a minute and hit the refresh button.
And then resume your seat with new alertness.
I'll be silent for a moment to let you practice on your own.
Letting your visual field be relaxed,
Gently focused on the periphery,
Lightly noticing whatever comes into awareness without making stories about it,
Without inviting the mind to proliferate,
Just letting yourself be a pure field of awareness,
Relaxed,
Alert,
Curious awareness.
If your mind carries you away on a thought stream,
Simply notice the thought stream,
No judgment,
Noticing with a light touch,
Letting it go,
And gently bringing yourself back into the field of awareness,
Resting gently in the periphery.
There's nothing to do here,
But simply be with whatever passes through.
As we slowly begin to close this meditation,
Centralize your vision by focusing straight ahead for a minute.
Close your mouth if it's been open and slowly lower your gaze.
Notice how the transition back to reference points feels.
Is it comforting to narrow your awareness or does it now feel confining?
With your gaze down about six feet in front of you,
Rest your vision there for a minute.
Gentle eyes.
Then close your eyes and return your awareness to your body and your breath.
Back to form.
And notice how you feel.
Continue sitting in referential meditation for a moment.
Present to your breath,
Your body.
Then open your eyes with your gaze down.
Gently lift your gaze.
Move your head around.
Look around.
Does your world look any different?
Do you feel any different?
If you like,
You can slowly get to your feet and do a moment of standing meditation before transitioning back to life.
When we move quickly or mindlessly,
It's easy to leave our meditation on the cushion.
The idea here is to mix awareness with space.
To mix your meditation with your life.
To let this meditation perfume the rest of your day.
If you'd like to journal,
It can be helpful to write down your experience and see how things change as you do this meditation day to day.
Open awareness takes a little while to get used to,
But over time,
It begins to feel very natural.
Instead of slipping into autopilot,
Into our normal state of contraction,
We find ourselves routinely relaxing into openness,
Into freedom.
May all beings be happy.
May all beings be at peace.
May all beings be free.
