As we continue to explore the spaciousness and clarity of open awareness practices, many of us enjoy dropping into this space, the natural openness of the mind, where we can finally rest the weary mind. We don’t have to control anything, we don’t have to make something happen, we don’t have to keep up our facade of ‘being good enough to be loved’, we don’t have to be anyone or do anything. We can enjoy just being.
The relative practices of mindful awareness of the body and the breath can be the doorway to the experience of open awareness. Our practice of mindfulness, remembering to notice the movement of the mind, brings us into our present moment experience. We are able to experience our true nature only in this moment; not when we are caught in thoughts of the past or the future. As one of my teachers said, “You have to be present to win!”
From Gaylon Ferguson in Buddhadharma magazine:
The bad news that the Buddhadharma [teachings or path of the Buddha] presents us with is that we are suffering, born in suffering, living in suffering, and making suffering worse by habits of denial and aggression.
The good news is that we have the innate capacity to see suffering clearly. That which sees confusion is not itself confused. This is the revolutionary discovery of awareness, a clear mirror in which all of our experience can be seen just as it is, nothing added, nothing ignored.
Our task is to see our habitual patterns clearly in each and every moment of awareness, understanding their true nature, and then, relaxing into them. This ‘relaxing into’ will allow their eventual release, opening us to a new level of understanding and insight. Each new release is a brief glimpse into the nature of mind.
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