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Welcome to episode 100 of the Mindful15 Podcast. I’m Monica Tomm, and I think 100 episodes is something to celebrate, so today we’re going to explore open awareness meditation, one of my favourite practices.
To meditate is to meditate on something. You need a meditation object on which to focus your attention. On Mindful15, I usually coach you to focus on your breath. It’s one of the most common and most accessible meditation objects, because the breath is with you wherever you are. 
In open awareness, you let go of the breath as the meditation object. Instead, you bring your attention to a phenomenon that arises in the moment. Sounds exotic, but it’s not. Phenomena include sights, smells, sounds, body sensations, thoughts, feelings, etc. 
You don’t choose the phenomenon. You focus on the one that is most prominent in the moment. You put your attention on it, experiencing it fully without judging it, just as you would focus on your breath in breath meditation. For the moment, it is your object of meditation.

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As you normally do in meditation, you keep your focus on the object, allowing distractions to pass by without attending to them. After a while, though, you’ll notice a new phenomenon becoming prominent, asking for more of your attention. At that time, you slowly release the first meditation object and bring your attention fully to the new one. 
For example, you might start off focusing on the breath, because that’s what you’ve trained yourself to do in sitting meditation. You attend to the sensations of breathing, and as thoughts arise, you let them pass by without following them.
You meditate with the breath for a few minutes and then you begin to notice a dull pain in your hip. Slowly, you let go of your focus on the breath and bring it to the sensations in your hip. You sit with these sensations, noticing just the bare sensations without judging them as bad, or worrisome. They’re just sensations. 
After a while longer, you begin to notice birds singing outside your window. They’re now more prominent than your hip. You gently let go of body sensations and begin to focus on the birdsong, again without judging it. You just sit with it.
The challenge in this practice is to avoid flitting from one meditation object to another. Remember, you’re not trying to deeply experience every phenomenon in the environment. You are trying to bring deep mindfulness to one thing at a time, slowly, calmly, and non-judgmentally. Think of it as going with the flow of life. Just sitting in the moment.
Typically, open awareness meditation isn’t taught to beginners, because they first need to practice focusing their attention. Breath meditation is the preferred starting place, because it helps build attention skills. I have, however, encountered many beginners who do well with open awareness.
There’s no harm in trying it, no matter your meditation experience. If you find it very difficult, you might set it aside and come back to it after strengthening your attention with breath meditation.
Let's give it a try
The following is a 12-minute guided open awareness meditation.

Up Next Week
Next week, we’re going to talk about grounding, the practice of sensing your connection to the earth. This beautiful practice brings a sense of support and stability. It can be used to enhance meditation practice and as a technique to cope with anxiety and other strong emotions.
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