Open Awareness: An Advanced Meditation for Expanded Consciousness
Move beyond focused attention to open, choiceless awareness — noticing everything without fixating on anything. A practice for experienced meditators.
Develops metacognitive awareness, Reduces identification with thoughts, Cultivates equanimity, Expands perceptual flexibility, Deepens meditative insight
Open Awareness
Sit in a stable, comfortable posture. This practice requires alertness, so choose a position that is both relaxed and upright. Let your eyes be partially open, with a soft, unfocused gaze resting on the floor a few feet in front of you. This keeps you present without fixating.
... take a moment to pause ...
Take three breaths to arrive. Do not control them. Simply allow your body to breathe itself, and notice.
... breathe deeply ...
... breathe deeply ...
... breathe deeply ...
We will begin with focused attention as a foundation, then open it into something much wider. Start by anchoring your awareness on your breath — the rise and fall of your abdomen, the flow of air through your nostrils. Hold your attention here steadily.
... take a longer pause here ...
When the mind is relatively stable on the breath, we expand. Begin to include sounds in your awareness. Don't go looking for sounds — let them come to you. Near sounds, far sounds. Keep the breath as your anchor but widen the field to include the auditory landscape.
... take a longer pause here ...
Now include body sensations. The feeling of contact with the chair or floor. Temperature on your skin. The heartbeat. The subtle hum of energy in your limbs. Your awareness now holds breath, sound, and body — all at once, without preference.
... take a longer pause here ...
Expand further. Include thoughts and emotions in your awareness — but here is the key: observe them as objects, not as reality. A thought arises the same way a sound arises — it appears, persists briefly, and dissolves. You don't chase sounds. Don't chase thoughts. Let them come and go like clouds.
... take a longer pause here ...
Now release the anchor of the breath entirely. Let your awareness be completely open — choiceless, panoramic, receptive. You are not focusing on anything in particular. You are simply aware of awareness itself.
... take a moment to pause ...
This is sometimes called "sky-like mind" — vast, open, accommodating everything without grasping anything. Sounds arise and pass. Sensations arise and pass. Thoughts arise and pass. You are the space in which it all occurs.
... take a longer pause here ...
If you find yourself getting caught in a thought — suddenly inside a narrative, planning, remembering, judging — simply notice the moment of "waking up" from the thought. That moment of recognition is the practice. Return to open, spacious awareness.
... take a longer pause here ...
Rest here. There is nothing to do. Nothing to figure out. Nothing to achieve. This is awareness without agenda. It is the simplest thing in the world, and also the most profound.
... take a longer pause here ...
Notice the quality of this awareness. It is not dull or sleepy. It is vivid, clear, and alert — yet completely relaxed. Tibetan teachers call this "relaxed vigilance." See if you can find that balance: awake but at ease.
... take a longer pause here ...
As you rest in open awareness, you may begin to notice the awareness itself — the knowing quality that is present regardless of what is known. This awareness is not a thought. It is prior to thought. It is what thoughts appear in, what sounds appear in, what everything appears in.
... take a longer pause here ...
Some traditions say this awareness is your deepest nature — unchanging, unbounded, always present. It was there in childhood. It is here now. It is the same awareness whether you are happy or sad, calm or agitated. It is the constant behind all change.
... take a longer pause here ...
Rest as this awareness. Not trying to be aware. Not doing anything. Simply being what you already are.
... take a longer pause here ...
When you are ready, allow your gaze to come into clearer focus. Take a deep breath. Feel the weight of your body. Let the distinction between meditation and non-meditation dissolve. You don't have to leave this awareness behind. It is always here. You are always this.
... take a moment to pause ...
Carry open awareness into your day. See what changes when you move through life with this vast, accommodating perspective.
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