Day 25: The Beginning of Non-Duality
Welcome to 24/365 short, daily meditations for a more mindful, relaxed, and connected life.
So far, we have mainly practiced concentration exercises. Their goal was to practice mindfulness. From now on, I’ll add direct pointers toward your original experience. Those can be more paradoxical, but also bring deeper realizations. We start with the following prompt:
1. What To Do:
Take these steps
- Allow your awareness to shift from reading to hearing the sounds that appear.
- Shift from hearing to an interest in the open, objectless space that surrounds you
- Rest as alert wordless awareness.
- When you notice that you’ve lost alert wordless awareness return to 1. Do 3 cycles.
2. Why to do it:
As you notice, today’s prompt is strikingly different from the exercises we performed so far.
Your goal is not to pay strategic effort to your breath, body, or even surroundings.
In the beginning effort is required to focus on sounds, but then you’re to unhook your attention from sounds to itself.
Because the space in which sounds appear is awareness.
This step (1→2) is unlike paying strategic focus. What you have to do is switch your mode of attention. The effort is brief, and it either works or it doesn’t. No amount of practice can prepare you for it, only build the ground from which to take the leap. The instruction is paradoxical because it involves doing something you’ve never done on purpose.
But it does speak directly to awareness, which is always already present but clouded by thoughts and other ego-functions.
You either get it or you don’t.
If you don’t get it, all you can do is try again. If frustration comes up, make that frustration an object of mindfulness and watch it dissolve. Then try again. Because there is something to grasp.
3. Closing
This series provides unique, interesting exercises for a more mindful life. One you can more fully enjoy and find purpose in. If you liked this exercise, you’ll love my newsletter, where I share insights into the power of connection every day: subscribe.hereispurpose.com
Thank you for your efforts and hopefully until tomorrow’s 26th meditation.
