How to open to the present moment with a Vast Open Sky meditation practice!
Several meditation traditions have practices that are a dropping of the ego into wide-open awareness. This is one of them and I would like to share this kind of practice with you because it is one of the most powerful experiences you can have.
What happens when you open your mind to seeing its vast open nature is transformational. No longer stuck in the smallness of our usual self-centered world, you become free.
Body like a mountain
Breath like the wind
Mind like the sky
~ Tibetan Meditation Instruction ~
Imagine getting into a frustrating story about someone else, about how they’re behaving. You can lovingly deal with the other person in an appropriate way that doesn’t come from pain or fear when you free yourself from the smallness of this worldview. Dropping the ego, you let your mind open into the vastness of the open sky. Suddenly, you are much more open, much less constricted, much more relaxed.
Just as important: you are all of a sudden fully immersed in this moment. You experience the moment just as it is now, without the added layer of your story about what is going on - without judgments or ideals, without getting caught in thoughts about the other person. It is a simple pure experience, and it is absolutely gorgeous.
Let’s explore this practice in seven easy steps: the Vast Open Sky
- Start by sitting in a comfortable but upright position, with your eyes open, relaxing into an awareness of your body and breath. Just notice what it’s like to be alive right now.
- After a minute or so of that, tune into the sounds all around you. Just receive them, without judgment, without labeling them. Just notice how you can have a wide-open awareness of all sounds. You don’t need to do anything about them. You are just experiencing the sounds, arising and then fading away.
- Next, open your awareness to all sight sensations around you without labeling or judging them. Notice light all around you. Be aware of shapes and colors & textures. Let your awareness open to soak in all sight sensations from all around you.
- Let your awareness relax into an openness that takes in all sensations all around you. Open to the sensations and feelings inside and outside of your body, letting them all become one big field of awareness. There is no separation between what’s inside you and outside you - one ocean of sensation.
- You can sit in this vast open sky of awareness, and then a cloud of thought might arise. Instead of getting caught up in the cloud, allow the sky of your mind to observe the thought cloud floating gently by.
- Be the sky, observing everything without getting caught up in one thing.
- Notice the vast open nature of your mind. This is the primordial state of your mind, what the Buddhists call your “Buddha nature” or your innate goodness. It is free, wide-open, unconstricted, egoless. It is pure awareness, pure love.
Here's how to open to the present moment with a Vast Open Sky meditation practice! #meditation @zen_habits @mindfulsoulctr
Next Steps: Using the Vast Open Sky Practice in Daily Life
If you didn’t quite get the above meditation, don’t worry. Like everything worth doing in life, practice. What’s important is to relax into it, don’t strain yourself, don’t strive to attain it. It’s already there. Simply relax and get out of the way of it.
Practice it daily, every morning.
Then try it when you’re walking somewhere. Open your mind like a vast open sky. Walk as you practice this open awareness, letting your ego drop away and just being present with the experience of the moment.
Try it when you’re tidying up. Try it when you are showering. Try it when you’re drinking tea.
With practice, you can maintain this vast open mind even while engaging with the world.
When you get better at this - and you will with practice - it becomes freeing at any moment. You might find yourself caught up in your thoughts about someone or some situation but, then the thoughts become less heavy. And suddenly, you have space to consider them, to let them float away, or to consider a loving or appropriate response.
You can be with someone and connect with them in a deeper way, as you realize that they too have this vast open nature, this innate goodness. You are both a part of the same limitless blue sky.
