Let’s talk about sky-like awareness. I think it’s important to understand that we are modern in our accoutrements and we are primitive in our motivations, and this is just a large portion of reality. Now, there are many among us who are fairly sophisticated in their motivations. Motivations are not necessarily simply about lustful urges. They can certainly be subtle: subtle movements in power, subtle movements in affiliation, and subtle movements in expertise. Incremental learning can be quite rewarding, as can obviously the more disruptive influences, the more disruptive awareness.

What I want to talk about today is how enlightenment can occur in the midst of the chaotic journey. The ability to see is always present. The practice of seeing, the habituation of seeing, the depth, if you will, of seeing. So in some ways, well, it comes back to the notion of the sky-like awareness or spacious nature. Like sky is interesting, like space, where is it? Where does it begin and end? Even though it isn’t necessarily the things, all the things, so what then could it be?

How can that spaciousness, that is in and not in everything, how could that be, and not be, in me? How can I be in it, and not be in it? So you have the spacious nature, and then you have what is not the spacious nature. So you have not the spacious nature, this spacious natureness, and not spacious nature.

I had a book when I was young, on meditation and yoga, I believe it was on yoga. It wasn’t a particularly large book, but it was an illustration of individuals in poses. I basically went through the sun salutation in a fairly basic way, but nevertheless hitting all the high points.   I think it had twelve or fifteen postures, don’t remember how many, as part of it. It talked about breathing while moving; it talked about a number of things.

There was another book on meditation. At any rate, perhaps it was this one, because it’s talking about yoga, and it was talking about meditation, and a variety of different things. It was saying that it’s a good idea to meditate in the same place all the time, but then it said that the ultimate goal is not to be good at meditating there, but to be good at meditating. It also talked about not meditating in that place, but meditating in very different places.

There was a picture of a man sitting in the lotus or yogi posture, in the middle of an intersection. It looked like it might have been New York, but he’s sitting in the middle, or on, someplace like in the intersection essentially, or right at it, but in the middle of the road. He’s just sitting meditating. There’s building’s all around. It’s a downtown area someplace, and you can just imagine what the noise and movement is like. So if you can meditate there, then you should be able to meditate anywhere, and that’s the idea.

This is one of my first messages about this. When I was, I don’t know, somewhere around 16 probably, or maybe before I was in my 20’s, it had to have been when I was 16 or 18, something like this, I was just learning to explore these things. I got a couple of books. I don’t know why I had these particular books, but I did, and I spent a good deal of time reading them. What I do is I practice this meditation, this spacious nature, this sky-like awareness, being, perhaps, all the time, at different degrees, so I’m always kind of aware of it.

Here’s the process. I notice when I’m in it, to the best of my ability, and I acknowledge it to myself. I’m not saying I spend any time at it. I just, like, “Oh, cool, good. This is this, that’s good.” And then I go and maintain the skye-like awareness for as long a period as I can, you know, kind of losing the judging. I start to notice the thought come in, and then, if I’m really kind of paying attention to it, I’ll just go ahead and let those thoughts flow right on through, because the sky-like awareness is really the key thing. The way I got there, the idea that I was aware, perhaps starting with my body, I was aware of my body or my thinking, and then something in the outside world influenced me and I adapted my sky-like awareness to take in whatever information it is.

I often think of learning, and much of life is learning. I realized that life was really about learning, like that’s the thing to do as you go through life, because that might be the only thing that makes sense. Some things I learn more easily than others. Some things I’ve paid attention to. My consciousness, the consciousness itself, is something that I’ve paid attention to, and it’s always here. It’s always right here. That’s the thing about it. I appreciate that everything that’s here is here and I have a great appreciation for all these things. I think that I need to take care of how I organize a little differently. There have been things about life that have been hard to learn and others that have been easier. More on that later I guess.