What is Open Awareness Meditation? A Simple Guide to Practicing
Open awareness is the practice of resting with a wide-open focus, allowing experience to arise and pass without interference. With a stable and receptive awareness, we observew whatever may come into the field of awareness. There may be thoughts, sounds, feelings, physical sensations, and many other things.
We’ll cover the basics of open awareness, the benefits of practicing in this way, how it differs from other forms of mindfulness practice, common difficulties, and some tips to get you started. There are some guided meditations you can try as well!
What is Open Awareness?
Open awareness is a mindfulness practice in which we let go of any restrictive focus. Although we might use the breath or another anchor during the practice, we don’t focus the attention on any one thing. We allow whatever arises to arise, and we observe it. It may be a thought, a feeling tone, a sensation in the body, a smell, a sound, etc. I will cover how we actually do this, different methods, and where to start, but that’s the basic idea.
The purpose of meditation in this way is to build insight, or understanding. Rather than focusing on one object, we cultivate this insight by watching the natural flow of experience and the mind. There are many different ways to do open awareness practice. We’ll cover those down in the section on Different Open Awareness Techniques.
Benefits of Open Awareness Meditation
Every type of meditation offers a different way to practice, with different potential benefits. In open awareness, there are a benefits we may see.
Insight - Open awareness is a type of mindfulness meditation that builds insight. As we continue to practice in this way, we develop clear seeing of the true nature of experience. This specifically relates to the Three Characteristics of impermanence, not-self, and suffering.
Less Reactivity - This is also true of vipassana practices and mindfulness meditation in general. I find that resting in true open awareness invites in a spaciousness that helps us observe experience with less reactivity. We don’t need to follow or resist experience, and can train the ability to simply observe.
Flexibility of Attention - Open awareness meditation trains the mind in a different way than concentration-based practices (more on this in a moment). We notice the composite parts of experience as a whole, and cultivate an ability to allow things to arise and pass into our awareness without any need for focus or control.
Daily Life Application - Open awareness can be used in any moment during the day, not just during a formal meditation period. Regardless of what we are doing, we can find this openness to investigate what is present in our awareness.
Less Striving - One specific aspect of my personal practice that is supported by open awareness is striving. In open awareness practice, we can’t really make anything happen. We just sit and watch. If the mind is in a mode of craving and striving, we can actually bring awareness to this!
How Open Awareness Differs from Concentration/Focus
There are many types of meditation practice, and open awareness is one form of cultivating mindfulness. In open awareness, our awareness is much softer and more open. This is contrasted with a concentration meditation, in which we collect our attention onto one object. When we collect the attention onto the breath, this is a form of concentration meditation. Open awareness doesn’t involve collecting the awareness onto one object in this way.
Mindfulness and concentration are complementary qualities. We can cultivate both in order to support the development of insight and understanding. But we must recognize these are two different qualities and techniques. In open awareness, we do not need to close our attention or focus in the same way as we do in concentration. We create space rather than limiting what enters our awareness.
How to Practice Open Awareness Meditation
There are many ways to practice open awareness. I’ll offer a few different techniques in the next section. At the end of this section, there’s a vido from our Mindfulness for Beginners playlist. It is a short, introductory meditation investigating insight via open awareness. These meditation instructions are how I often offer and structure my sitting periods.
Find Your Meditation Posture - I generally recommend a seated posture for meditation, but find the posture that works for you. You don’t need to sit cross-legged to meditate. You can practice lying down, standing, walking, or seated. What matters is finding a posture that feels conducive to your practice. I encourage you to find a posture that feels alert but relaxed.
Arrive in the Present-Time Experience - You can start by simply arriving where you are. What feelings are present in the body? Can you feel the body seated (or standing, etc.) here? What sounds are going on around you? What is the state of the mind? Does the mind feel calm, agitated, bored, curious, or sleepy? The task here isn’t to change anything; it is to simply arrive into our present-time experience with the awareness.
Collect the Attention (Optional) - This is an optional step you may take to help cultivate a collected and settled mind. I often start my periods of open awareness meditation with 5-10 minutes of metta or concentration. You can skip this if you wish; some people prefer to go straight into open awareness.
Open the Awareness - Now it’s time to open the awareness! Rather than keeping the attention on one thing (like the breath), you can expend your awareness to the entirety of experience. Include all of the sense doors: sights, smells, tastes, sounds, sensations in the body, and thoughts. Everything belongs.
Recognize Whatever Arises - Tune in and recognize what comes into your awareness. You might use a noting exercise, which we cover below. We don’t need to change or fix anything. Just watch what is present from moment-to-moment. It may be the sensation of breathing in one moment, and a sound the next. When thoughts arise, recognize the mind is thinking.
Observe Without Grasping - One of the core pieces of this practice is to simply observe without grasping or resisting. When clinging or tension arises in the mind, we can recognize that is happening as well. Watch where the mind likes or dislikes experiences, where expectations are present, and where the mind wants something different.
Different Open Awareness Techniques
There are many different ways to practice open awareness. Different people find different techniques work for them. I encourage you to investigate what is useful for you.
Noting or Labeling
This is a practice that was popularized by Mahasi Sayadaw, a Burmese monk and the topic of the first episode of my How They Meditate Series. With noting or labeling, you put a one-word term to what is arising in your experience. It may be something like hearing, thinking, planning, feeling, disliking, etc. This can be especially helpful with thoughts. It’s normal to think during meditation, and noting the thoughts or types of thoughts can help us see them without getting sucked in.
The noting serves as a way to help keep the mind on track with the practice. You can be as specific or as general as you’d like, investigating what works for you and supports mindfulness. Remember that your attention shouldn’t be entirely with the label; it should rest with the experience and the noting should be auxiliary.
Tejaniya-Style Awareness
You might also investigate the style of Sayadaw U Tejaniya, another topic covered in the How They Meditate Series. With this practice, we rest in awareness of awareness. What this means is recognizing the quality of mind that is observing. We rest in openness, specifically looking at how the mind is receiving and processing what is arising.
The intention of this practice is to specifically understand how everything is received in the mind. We look at experiences coming and going, and tune into the responses and reactions of the mind. In this way, we begin to see the flow of experience and where craving and aversion arise.
Open Awareness with an Anchor
For some people, full open awareness can feel too open. It’s like giving the mind a really long leash. We can shorten this leash a bit by staying with an anchor. This is most often done with the breath, but you can really use anything as the anchor. It simply serves as a way to keep the mind in the present and give attention a place to rest while waiting for something to arise.
To practice open awareness meditation like this, you might rest your attention with the sensation of the body breathing. As you rest with the breath, you keep the awareness open, awaiting other experiences. When something arises into your awareness, you recognize its presence and then return to the breath. In this way, the breath gives us something to return to and stabilize with.
Simple Sense-Door Awareness
You can simplify this practice with sense-door awareness. Instead of diving into the specific experience, just recognize what sense-door is being activated. So instead of listening to a sound, you just recognize hearing. Instead of following any thoughts, you note thinking. This can be a way to practice open awareness that doesn’t give too much space to wandering thoughts or attention that bounces around.
Common Difficulties
Much like any type of meditation, there are plenty of difficulties people experience with open awareness. I’ve listed a few common challenges students of mine have shared in mindfulness coaching sessions, along with how we can approach them.
Unrelenting Thoughts
I have so many people ask me how to stop thinking during meditation. Well, the short answer is you don’t need to. You absolutely do not need to clear your mind to meditate, so stop trying. Sometimes the mind bounces around incessantly, and sometimes we experience the same thought over and over again.
My first recommendation is to use a note or label. You might be specific. Is it planning? Maybe it’s analyzing? You don’t need to find the perfect word, but recognize the actual type of thought arising. Putting a label on it can help us put a little space there, and not identify with the thought so strongly.
Second, remember the task is to observe thoughts. Check in with any resistance or tension arising. How is the mind responding to these thoughts? Do you feel a sense of resisting them, wanting the mind to be in a different state (such as calm), or simple tensing around the thoughts? Instead of watching the thoughts, watch the reactions of the mind.
We talked about observing the mind a bit in our Thursday Morning Meditation in August 2026. You can find the recording below that includes both a guided meditation and a talk on how we can observe thoughts.
Boredom
Feeling bored in meditation is quite common. Without specific steps to take, open awareness meditation can feel boring or dull. This can happen from a variety of reasons, but the best suggestion I have is to look for something that interests you. Maybe it’s in the mind, a feeling in the body, or sounds. Follow your natural curiosity or interest. The mind that is interested is more engaged. You don’t need to manufacture interest; look for where it’s already there.
Losing Awareness
As may happen in any form of meditation practice, we can lose the awareness during this practice. As open awareness lacks one specific instruction (like focusing on the breath or moving through the body methodically like we do in a body scan), the attention can wander too far. We lose awareness and suddenly find the mind has been wandering.
I do recommend using one of the techniques above if you find this happening. Stick with noting or use an anchor. Both of these practices can help the mind stay on track. And most importantly, check your attitude in the moments you see the awareness has wandered. Don’t beat yourself up; recognize that it is an opportunity, not a problem!
Lacking Purpose
As you continue to practice with open awareness, it can feel like we don’t know what we’re doing entirely. This can come up as doubt, feeling like we lack purpose, or trying to figure out what the point of this is. This is all normal! I think there are two things we can do with this feeling.
First, read about the practice, what the intentions are, and how the progress of insight works. By knowing how open awareness works, you can give your practice some energy and fuel. You won’t wonder as much what you’re doing or why you’re doing it. When these thoughts come up, you can answer as you know what is what.
Second, just notice this feeling. Stick with awareness of your present-time experience. If what is present is doubt or wondering what you should be doing, just notice how that feels. Tune into that experience of craving for more, and get to know this process of your mind.
Practice Tips
Here are a few tips for your consideration in practicing open awareness. Take what you need, and leave the rest!
Watch Effort
One of the most common issues I see in my students and new meditators is over-efforting. You can’t over-effort your way into insight or wisdom! In fact, this straining in practice is often harmful. Check in with the effort you’re putting forth. Don’t strain. Open awareness meditation should be done with a relaxed attitude. It’s not about getting or achieving something; it’s about observing whatever is present.
Be Patient
Meditation is a training. You wouldn’t go to the gym and be angry that you can’t lift the heaviest weight on your first try, right? That’d be rather silly. It’s okay if the mind wanders and gets lost, if you struggle to follow along with what’s happening, or feel that you’re not getting any insight. Meditation takes some time to really work. Be patient and keep at it. Don’t continually check in with your progress. Just do it, and see what happens after weeks or months of practice.
Journal and Reflect
We so often hear the final bell of meditation and just get up and go on with our day. Many of my teachers have encouraged me over the years to pause and reflect. You might even keep a mindfulness journal. Check in with how the practice went. Steer clear of saying whether it was good or bad, right or wrong. Instead, note anything you learned, what you struggled with, anything you’re curious about, or simply what your experience was like. This can be a useful way to process the sitting period in a new way.
Start Small
I stress this quite a bit, such as in this post. You don’t need to torture yourself or cause unnecessary suffering to practice. Start as small as is comfortable. We have a whole page with two minute meditations, a whole playlist of 5 Minute Guided Meditations, and a monthlong program with short meditations (more about this at the end of the post). The reason I offer these is because I truly believe short meditation periods can be immensely beneficial.
Start where you are. Sure you want to work through the boredom or difficulties. But you don’t need to make meditation a pain. Sit for five or ten minutes. Build the habit, train the mind, and work your way up to longer sits if you wish. Below is a short meditation you can use.
Don’t Forget Gentleness
This goes a bit with not over-efforting. Bring metta, or loving-kindness, into your practice. You might start your sitting period with a few minutes of loving-kindness, or spend a session just practicing metta. This can help us respond with more gentleness and kindness with the mind. In turn, we grow less reactive and are able to see more clearly. Below is a metta meditation from our playlist of 10 Minute Guided Meditations.
Practice Off the Cushion
We can practice open awareness throughout daily life. It doesn’t have to be limited to time on the cushion. You can practice open awareness throughout your day, just recognizing what is present in your experience. You might try some walking meditation, mindfulness while working, or while taking a shower. Build continuity by utilizing this method during your day!
Find Community
Finally, find some community. This may be in the form of a practice buddy, a sangha, or someone to talk to about your practice. If you have a partner, you can absolutely practice open awareness as a form of couples meditation. For more information on the importance of community and how it supports us on this path, there’s an episode of my podcast below you can listen to.
The Role of Continuity
I know it can be hard to find the time to meditate. But continuity is one of the best things we can do for our practice. With regular practice, we build on the previous day’s sit and deepen the practice. You can read this post for some tips on starting a daily meditation practice.
You also might do my free Month of Mindfulness program. You’ll get a new meditation every day for 30 days. Each meditation is 3-6 minutes. They’re short, with the intention of helping you build the meditation habit. And they cover a variety of topics and techniques.
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Matthew Sockolov is a Buddhist meditation teacher who trained at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California. Completing the Dharma Leader training program in 2017, Matthew was given power to teach in the Insight Meditation tradition by Jack Kornfield, Kittisaro, Thanissara, and others. You can learn more about Matthew here.