Awakening to “Naked”- Open-Hearted Awareness…

In today’s busy, somewhat frenetic world,we live by moments which typically come and go
without much awareness or purposeful attention as we are usually caught up in distracting
thoughts or in opinions about what is happening in the moment.This might be referred to by
some as a state of mindlessness.As a general rule,we are more like human doings rather than
human beings.One’s state of “naked awareness” starts with stripping judgmental thought &
opinion to experience the moment for what is.As Gertrude Stein once wrote,“A rose is a rose
is a rose.” Shamatha or mindful meditation centers upon accepting the present moment for
what is… whether it is joyful or painful, happy or sad.

The word Shamatha in sanskirt means calmly, peacefully abiding- allowing the mind to be as it is.
In its natural state, the human mind is joyous, calm and clear.We don’t create this state- we’re
simply allowing our mind to engage our moments through non-judgmental observation. Sounds
simple enough, but most people today struggle with being still, quiet, and accepting of what is
happening within and around them.Our world has conditioned us to be bewildered.The
process of undoing bewilderment is based on stabilizing (calibrating) and strengthening our
mind. Shamatha or mindfulness meditation is how we do that. It’s a practice and a discipline
where we learn to calmly abide with “purposeful attention”:we learn to let ourselves just be in
the moment peacefully.As Henry David Thoreau once said: ”Only that day dawns to which we
are awake.”

We all have the ability to realize our naturally peaceful minds where there is no confusion.
Once cultivated through practice,we can use the natural clarity of our mind to focus on
anything we seek. But first we have to tame our minds through a process of mindful acceptance.
To begin our journey along a mindfulness path,we adopt a single pointed focus to help draw
our attention inward- in practice to become more relaxed, open (i.e. non-judgmental) &
accepting of our present moments. It’s a practice of non-doing or just being.This inward
attention and concentration to a single object is often called “One-Pointedness”.This one-pointedness
like the focus on our breath reduces the number of signals sent to the brain.
As a result, the mind begins to calm and open in a relaxed yet alert (i.e. clear) state.

As we will soon learn, our breath and our breath rhythm provide the universal foundation to
our meditation practice.

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