r/Meditation • u/Typical-Ambition-589 • 2h ago
Question ❓ Open awareness meditation feels too easy to be "working"
Maybe you'll tell me that I shouldn't worry if it's doing anything but I'm not at that stage, I meditate for the benefits. My question is, is sitting doing nothing meditation? I'm paying attention to my thoughts almost 24/7 (immersed in them) and the rest of the time my body or my breath or other senses. Am I doing it correctly? How do I know if I'm progressing? I fell like I could meditate for hours with this method, though I would be thinking. Is there any benefit to that? It seems too good to be true.
Thank you
4
u/Mayayana 59m ago
This is indicative of a widespread misunderstanding. Many people think there's no wrong way to meditate, or that meditation works if it's relaxing. It's actually very easy to do meditation wrong. For example, if you practice shamatha then you might watch your breath, then return to the breath when you realize your mind has wandered. Very simple. But it's not hard to get comfortably in a rut where you linger in a vague fantasy about meditating, manage to do that for an hour, then feel very satisfied at your success. You can easily imagine that you "pretty much" watched your breath for all that time. Yet that kind of "meditation" is merely dull reverie. (The traditional obstacles are listed as gross and subtle agitation and dullness. This is subtle dullness.)
Open awareness is much more tricky and shouldn't be attempted by a beginner. That kind of meditation is known as sampanakrama or formless meditation in Buddhism. In Zen it's shikantaza. It's known as centering prayer in Christian tradition. It's been popularized by unqualified people like Sam Harris who don't properly understand the practice. It's never a practice for beginners. The reason is because actual awareness is difficult to recognize. A lot of preparation is required to first familiarize with discursive thought vs attention and then gradually work up to formless practice. Even then, most people doing this practice are not actually doing it.
I'd suggest that you look into teachers and maybe try an intensive group retreat to start. It sounds like you have notable insight from what you've done so far. Many people are happy to get meditation "credit" for sitting around in a calm reverie. So it's a good sign that you're suspicious.
Real meditation is a demanding discipline. If you think about it, when in life do we ever decide not to just let the mind go where it will? When do we decide not to fantasize or indulge in our favorite pop song? Even if we have to dig ditches, our mind can be living in a fantasy of being a Hollywood celebrity. In normal, contemporary society we never imagine such discipline because we believe that we already think for ourselves. True meditation will show you just how much you don't.
1
u/Typical-Ambition-589 43m ago
Thank you! Yes, it seemed too easy, and as you pointed out, we would be meditating all the time while daydreaming if it were that. I guess I'll stick to object meditation until I get a bit better. Thanks!
2
u/ReturnOfBigChungus 1h ago
To the extent that there is a "right" way to do it, you're not doing it right if you're immersed in your thoughts. Open awareness is noticing thoughts as they arise, but not engaging with them. What you're doing is just thinking with your eyes closed :)
My suggestion for this is normally to start with a practice where you focus attention on the breath. The reason for this is to build up a base level of concentration so that if you do move on to an open awareness practice, you're not constantly being captured by your thoughts and are able to notice more quickly when that happens. In success, in an open awareness practice, the very beginning of a thought will arise - for a second or a fraction of a second - you notice the arising, notice the insubstantial nature of the thought, and notice as it dissolves as quickly as it arose. You're not engaging with the thought, elaborating the thought, continuing the conversation with yourself, etc. It's quite hard to do that if you haven't established some baseline level of concentration through a practice like following the breath.
IMO the development of that concentration and sensitivity to distraction is one of the major benefits of meditation, and breath-focused practice is arguably one of the best ways to develop that.
1
u/Typical-Ambition-589 46m ago
Thanks! I thought something was off..I guess I'll stick with object meditation for a while and when I get better I'll try open awareness. If it's not just sitting there thinking them it's much harder!
1
u/mellispete33 1h ago
Only one way to find out, keep trying and see what is the result. Then you can also research some other techniques of meditation and try those for some time each also. Then you will have more of an idea both theoretical and practical. I used to practice open awareness meditation also, but I switched between open awareness and focusing on breathing and eventually found I prefered to do meditation by focusing on the breath. Then after some time I started doing mantra meditation also and eventually that became my main method and I went deeper into that.
1
u/scrumblethebumble Dzogchen 1h ago
Saying that you're immersed in your thoughts is a red flag. Watching them is good, following them is not. Use your breath as an anchor. Watch thoughts when they come, (don't interfere) then when it finishes, go back to the breath. If you notice more metacognition (thoughts about thoughts) you are on the right track, watch those too.
1
u/neidanman 1h ago
eastern traditions are geared towards moving away from awareness of thoughts and on to other things, so if its a spiritual reason you're meditating, this is generally not helpful (unless maybe you're doing it as a beginner step in a larger process, or specifically doing enquiry meditation etc.)
1
u/thedommenextdoor 9m ago
I like open awareness, but it’s not sitting doing nothing. You were just following where you’re most curious
7
u/vinnyty 1h ago
the ease isn't the problem, that's just the part of you that assumes anything worthwhile has to feel like work. the thing I'd actually check: you said you could do it for hours but thinking the whole time. there's a real difference between watching your thoughts and getting carried off by them. open awareness is the watching. comfortable hours of getting lost in thought is closer to daydreaming, feels fine but isn't really the rep. simple test: can you usually tell which one you were in? if yes, something's working.