---
date: 2026-02-26T11:21:43-07:00
description: "A quick overview of what I think mindfullness is and how my practice looks."
image: ""
lastmod: 2026-02-27T00:48:58-07:00
showTableOfContents: false
tags: ["mindfullness", "lifestyle"]
title: "What Is Meditation"
type: "post"
---

# Awareness

I was given a four week paternity leave. It gave me a perfectly timed reprieve to find a new center. I enjoyed an hour long walk with my loyal pooch nearly every day. And on some of those days, I stopped at a rock, to sit and breathe.

_Years_ ago I would have thought this was pointless. Unless I was praying.

_A year_ ago I would have thought it theoretically is good for you, but not be very interested in actually doing it.

Over the last two months, my mind has really been opened to its own vastness.

Mindfulness is, at bottom, simply becoming aware of what is already there.

Becoming aware of your thoughts, yes. But also your body. Noticing tension, aversion, attraction.

I've only begun my journey into my mind, but I've seen and felt glimpses of an emptiness and peace I never thought possible.

## What Emptiness Is

There are many schools of thought around mindfulness and meditation. Some believe we are all connected to a greater single consciousness, others say there is only a vast emptiness. I subscribe to a non-dual view, basically that the notion of "I" is a construct. The thinker behind my eyes is not a real "me", it is but a bundle of sensory experience and thought what I have come to identify with. I think I took this route largely because it is what the Waking Up app espouses (sorry this is like 3rd day mentioning it, but I really like it).

I get the sense that all of these people that disagree about the terms and "doctrines" of the state of our minds in Eastern traditions, largely agree around the importance of meditation. It seems they are more fighting over the pedantry of terms.

{{< aside caption="So the goal is emptiness, you aren't supposed to feel anything?" >}}
The goal is not to eliminate experience. In fact, my understanding is its purpose is to train yourself to notice all of it. To expand your awareness to that which is always there.
{{</ aside >}}

I recently was lying in bed, waiting for sleep to come. Breathing deeply and slowly, attending to the sensation of my breath. I noticed that my jaw seemed tight. I tried opening my mouth a bit, and noticed it did not want to sit anywhere other than closed, at rest. This seemed odd. Sure enough, with time, and a gauge of improvement, in the form of my fist in my teeth, my jaw slowly opened agape. I had never had my mouth opened so wide! I thought previously I was entirely relaxed. In reality, I had become numb to the tension. This caught me so surprised. I was shocked something like chronic lived-with tightness like this could live so long right under my nose (literally)!

If you are curious to try mindfulness, I highly recommend taking the chance to just attend to your mind and body. Attend to the world around you, because it will never arrange itself the same for you.
