The Practice of Living Awareness

To the human eye, a plant seems to grow sequentially: seed, roots, stalk, leaves, bud, and blossom. But, to the plant, a simultaneous unfolding of inner qualities and potential is occurring. And, because the qualities and potential are innate, the plant does not think about its maturing. For the onlooking human, the plant has stages that lead to the blossoming flower or the production of fruit. With that, the task seems done and the plant sets seed and dies.

We experience life as a sequence. We experience time; but that is because we are creating moment by moment awareness of this or that. Our attention goes in one direction or another, sometimes producing avoidance of an experience, words, or relation and sometimes producing gravitation toward these. Time is created by the function of attention and its jumping from thing to thing, person to person. (This isn’t good or bad, but simply describes how time is created in our mind.)

Yet, when put in a situation with no clocks or less distractions, our experience of time shifts. It usually elongates. Time becomes more timeless. Examples of this include being in nature, with someone, or sitting staring at the sky. Meditation often brings this as one of its many results.

Spaciousness is natural quality of mind and awareness. It is also the quality of emotions and heart. We experience the truth of these statements by the fact that we fill our mind and our emotions. Human beings are insatiable for information, even from TV shows, and we seek resonance with others.

These two qualities: free from or unconstrained by time and spaciousness are qualities that are innate to human Being. At essence, they are clarity and emptiness. Our first Intermediate meditation in this round engages all of the above.

Graphic: Solace by skipper on DeviantART

Downloadable podcast: Time and space