Discovering Open-Awareness: An Approach to Meditation

Meditation Beyond Managing the Mind

When many people think about meditation, they often imagine a practice of concentrating the mind, calming thoughts, or achieving some special state. And while these practices can be valuable, another approach to meditation points toward something even more fundamental — a direct recognition of the open awareness that is already present within all of our experience.

Meeting What Is Already Here

Rather than trying to change, fix, or manage what we experience, meditation here is about turning our attention gently back to what is always quietly present: the open, uncontrived open-awareness that serves as the ground for every thought, emotion, perception, and sensation.

This open-awareness is not something we create. It’s not something we fabricate through effort, nor is it a rare or mystical state of mind. It is simply the basic space and knowing quality that has always been with us, whether or not we have noticed it.

Recognizing the Unchanging Ground

When we first start to turn inward, we may glimpse this open-awareness as something spacious and clear, something that doesn’t have a particular form, shape, or color, yet is undeniably present. Over time, as we become more familiar with it, we start to see that this open-awareness has always been the true ground of all of our experiences. It is not a passing experience itself; it is the stable presence in which all experiences unfold.

This way of meditating is not about striving for calmness or chasing insights. It’s about recognizing and returning to what has been here all along. Sometimes the mind is busy, sometimes it’s quiet, but open-awareness itself does not change.

Practice Is Life, Not Just Sitting

In this approach, formal sitting practice is important, but not enough on its own. We live twenty-four hours a day, and an hour or two of meditation can only reach so far if the rest of the day is spent in distraction or reactivity. Integration is essential. By learning to recognize open-awareness not only during meditation but within everyday life — while walking, working, talking, feeling, life itself becomes part of the practice.

This doesn’t mean trying to fix or correct what we experience. It means meeting life as it is, within the stable openness that is already here.

The Deepening of Familiarity

Over time, through direct experience, we may come to see something even more profound: that there is no real separation between ourselves, our experiences, and the open awareness that holds them. What once felt like the contrast between awareness and the flow of life gradually dissolves, and we have a growing intimation that everything arises within and as awareness itself. This knowledge is not an idea, it is something we discover through living it.

An Invitation to Explore Together

In offering this approach, our wish is to create a space where people can reconnect with something essential and stable within themselves, something that doesn’t depend on circumstances or on having perfect conditions.

Open-awareness is already here. The practice is simply learning how to notice it, trust it, and allow it to support us in everyday life.

If this way of practicing resonates with you, you are warmly welcome here.