Expansive awareness meditation can end up getting you to the same place concentration meditation does (a still, present mind), but by using a different path…. You may find [it] works much better for you…. It just seems to depend on the way your mind works.
[Y]ou try to open your awareness to everything. Imagine you’re waiting for some unusual or miraculous event, but you don’t know which of your senses you’ll perceive it with. Will it be a sound? Will it be a sight? Will it be a thought? Whenever you find your mind has wandered, instead of bringing it back to an object, you open your awareness back up. Any time you latch on to a train of thought or a particular sensation, you’re also closing down your awareness of other things. By opening your awareness as wide as you can, you’re returning to mindfulness of the present, just as you would by turning your attention back to an object of concentration.
MINDFUL EXERCISE
Sit, stand, or lie down and keep your eyes open. Widen your gaze, including what’s to the sides and above and below in your peripheral vision. (This will help keep you from getting distracted by particular things you can see.) Now watch your visual field as if it’s a movie—a slow-moving movie, perhaps, but one of those quiet, visually rich, artistic ones. Just keep watching. When you stop because you have gotten caught up in thinking, note that you have tuned out the “movie” because it’s boring, or because you think you know what’s going to happen next. Ask yourself, “When I really stop to look, is anything truly boring? Do I really know what’s going to happen next?”
From “Mindfulness” by Domyo Sater Burk © 2014 by Penguin Group (USA) isbn 978-1-61564-619-7
Expansive awareness meditation can end up getting you to the same place concentration meditation does (a still, present mind), but by using a different path…. You may find [it] works much better for you…. It just seems to depend on the way your mind works.
[Y]ou try to open your awareness to everything. Imagine you’re waiting for some unusual or miraculous event, but you don’t know which of your senses you’ll perceive it with. Will it be a sound? Will it be a sight? Will it be a thought? Whenever you find your mind has wandered, instead of bringing it back to an object, you open your awareness back up. Any time you latch on to a train of thought or a particular sensation, you’re also closing down your awareness of other things. By opening your awareness as wide as you can, you’re returning to mindfulness of the present, just as you would by turning your attention back to an object of concentration.
MINDFUL EXERCISE Sit, stand, or lie down and keep your eyes open. Widen your gaze, including what’s to the sides and above and below in your peripheral vision. (This will help keep you from getting distracted by particular things you can see.) Now watch your visual field as if it’s a movie—a slow-moving movie, perhaps, but one of those quiet, visually rich, artistic ones. Just keep watching. When you stop because you have gotten caught up in thinking, note that you have tuned out the “movie” because it’s boring, or because you think you know what’s going to happen next. Ask yourself, “When I really stop to look, is anything truly boring? Do I really know what’s going to happen next?”