Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness. Today, I'm going to talk about how we can use the awareness of space as a mindfulness practice. So as we go about daily life, we tend to constantly pay attention to things and to objects. So we give our focus to our possessions, our body, our thoughts, other people, activities and achievements, and more. But very rarely, if ever, do we stop to recognize and appreciate the space that allows all objects to be, the silent vessel that holds all of the ever-changing forms in the universe.

Space allows everything to exist and unfold. Now we may think of space as just an empty nothingness, but it holds its own aliveness, its own mystery, its own power. So by shifting our focus from the objects in space to the space in which those objects appear, we can often tap into the still and spacious awareness at the heart of who we are. We can catch a glimpse of this spacious and timeless awareness by noticing things like the brief pause in between the exhale and the inhale. The brief pause in between sounds, just allowing our attention to linger there for a moment.

Or being attentive to the spaces in between thoughts during meditation. In those spaces within you, there is always this unchanging field of awareness itself, never altered by the thoughts or experiences passing through it. So whenever possible, sensing into that still, ever present awareness. Everything that changes has an unchanging spaciousness allowing it to be. And when we sense into that, where logic and language may fail, we might sense something sacred in that still space.

We can also enjoy moments of pause in our lives, moments when there's a space in between activity. So there's a pause in the doing sometimes when one thing ends before another thing begins. Moments when the house is quiet, there's nothing to do. So instead of filling those moments with more stuff and more doing, we can just see what it's like to lean into that stillness and space. Just enjoying some space to just simply be.

Practicing in these ways, we can let the awareness of space and stillness anchor us more fully in the depths of who we are. So that's the invitation for practice today, if this resonates with you, if it's something that you'd like to try. Just inviting a spacious awareness into your day, seeing what effect it has on your body, your mind, and your life. All the best with the practice and as always, thank you for your practice. Let's settle in now for today's meditation.