Choiceless Awareness

During our meditation journey we have practiced cultivating awareness using particular objects of attention to emphasise different aspects of our experience of the present moment. We have focused on mindfulness of tasting, mindfulness of body sensations, mindfulness of the breath, mindfulness of movement, mindfulness of sound, mindfulness of thoughts and emotions, mindfulness of experiences we judge to be pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. With each of these objects of attention, we have explored their richness and depth, and our reactions to them. They have served as useful anchors, bringing us back to the present moment each time our minds wander away. They have helped us to cultivate qualities of attending and gradually, the capacity to start to settle our minds.

The mode of attending we cultivate in our meditation practice is not narrow or over-focused (as it can be when we are concentrating upon something): it does not exclude or block anything out from the field of awareness. Rather, it is like the ever widening concentric circles in a pond after a pebble has been dropped in. We come to notice that the objects of attention we have been exploring are not distinctly separated from one another: they are all held in a broader field of awareness and an ever changing landscape of sensation and experience.

The practice of choiceless awareness is one of dropping focus upon any particular object of awareness, and simply attending to whatever arises within our experience. In Zen practice it is described as “just sitting”. It is like sitting in the middle of those concentric circles, allowing our awareness to be open and expansive. Simply attending to whatever arises and to all aspects of our experience, arising and passing away, coming and going, appearing and disappearing – not holding to anything. The mind is like the radiant blue sky: clear, bright, totally accepting, fully knowing and recognizing, like a mirror, reflecting all that is there, clinging to nothing, pushing nothing away. The landscapes of our experience are like rainbows, bubbles arising on the stream, shadows and light patterns, continuously flowing and changing, leaving no trace.

In this practice, we rest in awareness itself. We even let go of the idea that we are “meditating” or doing anything at all. During a period of meditation practice, we can experiment with dropping the object of awareness and just sit for a few moments with a broad open awareness. It can be useful to end a period of practice in this way, or we may find that we drop into choiceless awareness in the middle of a practice session. This is not dropping into drowsiness, sleepiness or episodes where our mindfulness becomes foggy or out of focus. The qualities of choiceless awareness include a strong sense of clarity and wakefulness.

Once our mindfulness practice is somewhat stronger, we may choose to practice longer periods of choiceless awareness. Whatever arises in the moment comes into our experience, and we meet it, as best we can, with bare attention, with acceptance and without judging. We open to whatever comes, allowing it to arise, to show itself and to fade away, without interfering in any way. Just noticing, present moment attending, welcoming whatever comes, watching, witnessing as if we are sitting quietly on the banks of the river, just letting it all flow past. If we get lost, we simply return to a familiar object of awareness, such as the breath, to anchor us back into the present moment.

NHS Lothian 2017