Working With Awareness

Hi,

Hello,

And welcome to this meditation on working with awareness.

Most of us don't recognize that we are most of the time constantly being pulled around by our attention or what really is arising in our awareness.

And subsequently,

Most of us are not aware or don't recognize that we can choose what we are going to give our attention to.

Once we become aware of that which arises in our awareness,

Then we have a choice as to what we'd like to put our attention on,

How much of our awareness we'd like to give to that phenomena,

Which I'll say more about in a minute,

And then be able to leave it there,

Which is the essence of learning to work with the attention and work with awareness.

If you've read the exercise in the book,

You know that we've practiced with simply directing our attention by using our sight.

We can also direct the attention of our hearing.

And what's most striking about all of this and in that exercise itself is that simply because I direct my attention with sight,

It doesn't mean that I stop hearing.

Sends are still arising,

Sensations are still arising in the body.

And what we become very aware of in those moments is that all of these phenomenon,

Things that we see,

Sounds that come to our hearing,

Sensations arising in the body and thoughts are simply arising in awareness.

They are arising in our consciousness.

Now this brings us to a particularly powerful understanding and powerful experience that if we simply know that these things are arising,

That we are moment by moment simply just becoming aware of things as they're occurring and we can recognize that those things are occurring all simultaneously,

Then we can start to have a different experience and understand that we can touch into this space that's simply noticing that which is arising.

It's a pretty powerful experience once we start to actually experience it and understand it for ourselves.

So this meditation is really based on that premise and we'll experiment for ourselves so that we can understand more about what it is to work with the attention and what it is to work with this arising phenomenon.

So get comfortable and you want to be in a relaxed state but also one that allows you to remain alert.

So that can happen in sitting or standing or lying if you like.

Lying down always presents a certain level of challenge because we often go to sleep when we lie down.

Whatever allows you to be in the most relaxed and yet alert state.

And you may leave the eyes open and we're simply going to notice that which arises in our awareness.

And we'll do this by giving a bit of direction to the attention.

And the first thing we might want to notice is breathing,

The simple sensation of breathing.

The easiest way to do this is simply by noticing where you experience the breath in the body.

It may be your abdomen or the air coming in through your nostrils.

Now we'll use breathing more later in other meditations as an anchor but for now let's simply just notice the sensation of breathing.

And if you're sitting with your eyes open you've also been noticing things coming into your vision.

Sight,

Sighting is happening.

And simply allow the sights to be in your awareness,

To arise in awareness.

You may gently scan in the room.

And then we can also become aware of sound.

There's the sound of my voice.

There may be other sounds in the room.

All is simply arising in awareness.

In one moment you may notice that you're particularly aware of a sound that is occurring.

And then in the next moment you may be particularly aware of something you see or a sensation in the body that all of these seem to arise unbidden.

They seem to simply be showing up.

And of course,

As is also true,

We may become aware of a thought,

Perhaps something we've thought of that we need to do sometime in the future.

Or a thought that is about something that happened in the past.

That thoughts simply arise in our awareness,

Our consciousness.

We can simply sit with all of that which is arising,

Noticing what simply gets attention.

Now we then see that we start to create a bit of a choice for ourselves.

We can have a thought arise and suddenly be giving it all of our attention.

Suddenly it seems as though we have forgotten about the things arising in our vision or sensation in our body.

And suddenly all of our attention has been given to a thought or most commonly a stream of thoughts and we have been taken away by fantasy.

Thinking about,

Imagining something in the future.

Or perhaps we hear a sound,

A certain dinging or buzzing occurs.

And we drift into our attention and giving our attention to all of the sound and the subsequent actions that come from the sound.

Once we have an experience of noticing what is arising in awareness and is arising in our consciousness,

We become more adept,

More skillful at noticing what we're giving our attention to.

And how much we'd like to give attention to that which is arising.

Simply keep noticing that which is arising and that which consciousness is becoming aware.

Thoughts,

Sights,

Sounds,

Sensations and even certain feeling tones of pleasant or unpleasant and then we may like to practice with placing the attention in one area.

For example,

We may like to anchor the attention on the breath to simply learn how to place the attention in an area we could just as easily place the attention on sound if you like or body sensations.

And we simply rest the attention giving our full attention to the sensations,

To the experience of breathing.

Noticing the inhale and exhale,

Noticing the arising and then the falling away of the sensations of breathing.

Becoming acutely aware of the experience of the breath.

Nothing we're doing all the time.

We're most often completely unaware of,

Of course it's impeded in some way.

We experience the simplicity of resting as awareness,

Resting in awareness by allowing the attention to simply be this one space,

One time.

I encourage you to practice this meditation throughout the day,

Couple minutes at a time,

Works very well,

Simply becoming aware of that which is arising,

That which comes unbidden to us,

Thoughts,

Sensations and the like and noticing,

Noticing that which is aware,

That which is truly simply aware of the phenomena of living.

Thank you for practicing.

Thank you for being here.

Please explore this meditation further for yourself.

Until we meet again.

Thank you.