A 12-Minute Meditation to Cultivate Presence and Awareness

Bring mindfulness to your sensory experience by exploring your visual field.

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For many of us, meditation is done with our eyes closed. Yet when we’re outside in nature, and just in our life, our eyes are open. Meditation teacher Mark Coleman, author of Awake In the Wild, shares this practice to help you cultivate a sense of presence and awareness that you can take with you anywhere, whether sitting at your desk, sitting in a room, or gazing over a vast landscape of sky, ocean, mountains.

  Cultivating a Sense of Presence and Awareness 11:53 A Guided Meditation to Cultivate Presence and Awareness Begin by finding a comfortable posture and then lowering your gaze. Sitting with a sense of ease, relaxation, feeling that connection of your body with the ground, with the earth. Just closing the eyes to begin, sensing your body sitting, sensing your posture. Take a few mindful breaths, and be aware of the soundscape that’s all around you.  And then opening your eyes softly, slowly, gently. Have the gaze looking down, maybe four or five feet in front of you. Relax the eyes. Soften the gaze. Cultivate that sense of receiving through the eyes. Ideally, you have a wide-angle vision, so…