The Space of Awareness

Shifting Attention: The Space of Awareness

Bring your attention to the sensations of your body. Let your eyes remain open, taking in the words of the text with a gentle, non-grasping awareness. Move your attention to different parts of the body, noticing the different sensations that arise…

As you attend to various sensations, notice that there is no clear boundary in your awareness between the sensations that make up the body and the space around the body…

As you release the sense of a clear boundary, begin to notice the larger space in which these sensations move…

Allow the sense of this larger space to continue to expand until you lose the sense of it having a beginning or ending, just open space…

As your sense of this space expands, see if you can notice a quality of stillness and calm associated with the unchanging nature of the space, the feeling of simply being which remains unchanged while the sensations continue to move and change in various ways…

Notice any sounds which are occurring, notice that they all occur within this larger space… notice whether near or far, the sounds all exist within the same open space …

Notice images arising in the mind… these too are moving and changing in various ways, all within this larger space …

Thoughts arise in space, move through it, dissolve back into it, the space remains, unchanged by whatever moves through it…

Feelings come and go – whether feelings of happiness, sadness, anger, joy, liking or disliking – constantly changing, leaving the space untouched, unchanged…

Staying aware of sensations, images, thoughts and feelings arising and passing away, notice the tendency of the mind to hold on to them, to harden them into solid objects… Releasing this tendency, see if you can become aware of a sense of ease and calm that may emerge as the sense of spaciousness expands…   As the feeling of wide open space continues to expand, a feeling of quiet joy may enter into awareness…

Notice how everything moves, changes constantly within this space – sensations, thoughts, feelings – all patterns of moving energy, contained within the space, but not disturbing it …