Simple Awareness
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Simple awareness, your recognition that you are reading this sentence is as important to your survival as the air you breath and the water you drink. Physical bodies live and die in space and in water. Thoughts are born in awareness and they pass away from awareness. When awareness is functioning well, it evaluates and contains unstable thoughts before they cause harm.

Most of us aren't really aware of awareness. When we think that our thoughts are real rather than just thoughts, we begin feeling threatened and our field of awareness narrows to a sharp point that serves as a weapon. Meditation is, in essence, a practice of expanding the field of awareness. We do this by directing attention away from thinking to the breath and the simple physical experience of being alive. When we feel more we begin to see that a lot of our thoughts are harmful. They hurt us and we take it out on other people. When we see how we hurt ourselves, we can stop. When thought quiets down, just being alive feels pretty good. We allow ourselves to be aware of our breath and body and then we begin to see the full breadth of the sky and enjoy life just as it is.

My main practice for a long time has been just walking, synchronizing my breath with my steps, usually one to four steps as I inhale and then five to eight on the exhalation. It feels really good to just walk, to just be grounded in my body. Life is still full of pain and loss but somehow, it is all right. It is what Thich Nhat Hanh once described as the miracle of mindfulness.

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