Intro: From Focus to Open Awareness (9:49)

Guided Meditation: From Focus to Open Awareness (19:34)

This week’s guided meditation moved between focused practice, based in the breath or other anchor, to open awareness practice, opening out into a field of awareness of all the senses, aware but not attaching to any one sensation. These two types of meditation, singly or together, are often at the core of what is referred to as “mindfulness meditation.” As we discussed in our time together, however, there are dozens of types of meditation, coming out of most of the wisdom traditions of the world, including Buddhist, Christian, Buddhist, Sufi, Hindu, Yoga, Tao, Qigong and so many more. You can view a list that provides a good but certainly not exhaustive overview here.

I mentioned a gatha or meditation poem from Thich Nhat Hahn that I find useful when I am having a particularly hard time settling my mind during a sitting meditation, or when I am walking and notice that I have gone down the rabbit hole of solving the world’s problems when I really want to be walking in awareness. You can find that gatha here.

Mike shared with us the book Refining the Breath: The Yogic Practice of Pranayama by Doug Keller, available on Keller’s website. And Nancy spoke about the 40-day practice period she had just completed with the yoga and meditation teacher Khushi Malhotra. We asked Nancy for more information and I will quote from her email: 

If you google that name, you will find a famous Indian actress…. Not the same person. You can find Khushi at her website, Khushyoga.com.  The class I took was the 40-day sadhana.  She also has a few podcast sessions at Athayoganusasanam.  If you are familiar with the yoga sutras of Patanjali, you will recognize that as the first yoga sutra, Atha Yog Anusasanam, meaning “Now begins the discipline of yoga”.

Khushi’s classes appeal to me because she illuminates the ancient yogic teachings with a gentle emphasis on the discipline called for in the teachings, tempered by an awareness of the reality of our current culture.  If you are curious, I would recommend listening to the podcasts.

Thanks to both Mike and Nancy for sharing these practices.