Our everyday awareness practice is being awake & present- curious & inquisitive.

Our meditation practice is systematic and sustained observation- whether it be the whole of our experience or simply an element of it. In the here and now, we stay true to the course and to cultivating greater awareness, clarity, understanding, and compassion. We routinely and patiently practice seeing whatever arises in our full awareness to be “workable”. Our disciplined efforts in attention training help us to tune our nonreactive awareness to see clearly behind our conditioned patterns and assumptions that breed much of our interior chaos and confusion.

Staying attuned to the present moment gives us grounding, stability, and resilience as we look directly at our experiences with openness and receptivity. Moment-to-moment awareness with curiosity, interest, and intent helps us to see the “freshness” of what is new to each experience, and how this beginner’s mind leaves us freely open to insight and wisdom.

Our natural clarity– our clear sanity– and our inherent capacity see conditions in a new way is anchored in the present moment. We abide in stillness to calm the restlessness, “noise”, and chatter of the mind so that we can see the clarity and subtlety below its turbulent surface. With full awareness in the present moment, we wake up to our reactive thinking and adopt a “workable” approach to our experiences so that they can be worked out rather than working us up. The insight of “clear seeing” awakens our capacity to act with skillful discernment- and to be sensitive to the context of our dynamic experiences.

In the present moment, something shifts inside us at a very deep level when we attend each arising experience with honest and direct reflection to see what best meets the reality of the situation. Resting in the space of moment-to-moment awareness can bring forth the insight for deeper self-discovery as we can begin to see the underlying conditions that precipitate our habitual reactions, and the possibilities for greater choices. Staying attuned to the present moment expands and refines our observation skills- as well as the illuminating and penetrating light of our mindsight.

With open & nonjudgmental observation, our reactionary tendencies come into perspective. We begin to see more clearly how we are- and where, and under what conditions our “habitualness” or reactionary self is likely to surface. The power of awareness has the energy to regulate how we act or don’t act by seeing behind our actions- the deeply internalized messages or beliefs that give rise to disposition and intention to think and to act one way or another.

Pause, look, listen, and feel the presence of your awareness in this moment. What do you truly see?

Comments