Open Awareness
There is another aspect of mindfulness meditation that helps us develop the strong stable awareness that brings calmness and clarity to our minds. This aspect of mindfulness is called open attention, choiceless awareness, resting in awareness or moment-to-moment awareness. These are all good names because they are all descriptive of this practice.
In this practice, instead of intentionally keeping attention focused on one object, such as the breath or an emotion or thoughts, awareness is open to whatever is arising in the mind. This is called choiceless awareness because we are sitting with no agenda about what to be mindful of or where to direct our attention. The mind is just present to whatever comes up. This may be sensation such as sights, sounds, smells, or sensations in the body. Or it may be mental phenomena like memories and thoughts. Some of the phenomena that arise may seem very compelling—intense emotions, such as fear and anger; bodily discomfort; strong memories, beliefs, desires and resistances. Some may be subtle—ephemeral thoughts, faint sensations in the body, mild irritation.
Our habitual mind wants to reach out to these sensations and emotions and thoughts with like or dislike, to see them as pleasant or unpleasant, to start commenting on them, start spinning a story. But instead we can learn to keep our mind still and steady, open and spacious without rejecting, grasping onto, reacting, commenting, or trying to control anything. We just observe whatever is present in the mind, whatever is arising moment-to-moment, with an attitude of complete openness and receptivity.
The more we practice resting in awareness, the more we will begin to see the true nature of all the mental phenomena that arise in our mind as transitory; insubstantial, without any inherent reality; and impersonal. In this practice we are learning to turn our attention away from the content of the mind (sensations, thoughts etc.) and toward the process of awareness itself. Our aware mind, pure awareness, becomes more familiar to us, more tangible and real. We learn to be less entangled with the discursive mind.
This is a very different way of being in the world, of relating to the world and to our minds. We cultivate choiceless awareness during sitting meditation in order to bring it into our everyday life, so we live in the world just present to our life as it unfolds. This has been called a “being mode” of mind. We’re still doing in the world, but from a place of awareness, of presence. Many people have learned to do this and to live with greater presence, steadiness and well-being. It brings a sense of freedom and a greater happiness into our lives. As Thich Nhat Hanh says, “Our appointment with life is in the present moment. We do not want to miss our appointment with life.
Guided Meditation on Open, Relaxed Awareness
Get into your meditation posture. Feel yourself sitting with stability—stable, upright, and open. Sitting with dignity and presence. Let awareness settle into the body. Feel yourself grounded in the body.
We will begin by becoming attentive to our breathing. Be aware of your breathing. No need to change, improve, or control your breathing in any way. Let the breathing take care of itself. Be attentive to the breath as it enters your body, and as it leaves your body. Breathing in. Breathing out. Let the flow of the breath relax and calm the mind.
Now allow your awareness to expand to your body as a whole, sitting here. Feel your whole body, just sitting. Nothing to do. Just be present with your body--its wholeness, its inherent completeness. Your breath and your whole body can be attended to without striving to do anything. Just sitting, just breathing.
Now allow your field of awareness to expand to any sounds that you hear. You still have an awareness of your breath and your whole body, but that awareness might gently move a bit to the background as you allow into the foreground any sounds that are available to you. Sounds that might be emanating from your body. Sounds in the room. Sounds in the environment beyond the room. Without judgement. Sounds just come and go, just like the breath. Just be with whatever is there.
Now expand your field of awareness to include any emotions that might have arisen. Emotions might blossom forth like happiness, confusion, sadness, joy. Notice what the emotion is and where you feel it in your body. Emotions have a beginning, middle and end. They arise within open awareness and they pass away.
Thoughts also come into the field of awareness. Let thoughts arise without attaching to them--whatever they are: wholesome thoughts, unwholesome thoughts; self-critical thoughts, self-inflating thoughts. They come into awareness like clouds coming into the sky, and just as calmly drift on. Notice the impersonal nature of them. The mind of awareness stays open and tranquil.
At any time you might notice that your mind has wandered. Just acknowledge that wandering, without self-criticism. When you notice that your mind has wandered, return to awareness of your breath, of your body as a whole, of any sounds that you hear. Your breath is always there as your anchor--a solid, steady anchor to bring you back into the present moment, back into your body. Just follow your breath for a few moments, and when the mind is relaxed and open again, you can return to that place of awareness that holds everything in that open, boundless field of awareness.
Sitting with open-heartedness. With a mind that is spacious and open. Not holding on to anything. Sitting with ease, present to whatever arises. Present to the breath, sensations of the body, sounds, emotions or thoughts.
Nothing is excluded. Anything that arises can be embraced by awareness. Mindfulness can hold anything, and everything. That which is painful and that which is not. From the perspective of awareness it doesn’t matter. Resting in this open field of awareness that lets everything just come and go, arising and passing away.
The calm abiding mind is very still. No movement. Just resting. Allowing silence and stillness to be here. This open spacious awareness is our mind’s true state.
Resting in this spacious awareness for just one more minute.