Practices for Deepening Awareness

How do I actually develop these capacities for expanded awareness? What practices can I do right now?

Through lots of explorations and learning from teachers, I've found we need to develop three core abilities before we can access expanded states of awareness. Think of them as the foundation of a house - without them, everything else becomes unstable or inaccessible.

Part 1: Sharpening Your Attention

When I did my first Vipassana retreat, the teacher told us something that shifted everything for me: "You cannot do anything, not even meditate properly, until you learn to sharpen your attention."

This truth appears everywhere in the wisdom traditions. In Vipassana, they say that without first developing samatha (concentration), you cannot achieve true vipassana (insight). The mind is like a lake - when it's agitated with waves, you can't see clearly to the bottom. Only when the surface becomes perfectly still can you see into the depths.

The Tibetan Buddhist tradition has an entire path called the samatha path, dedicated to achieving mental calmness. They say that true meditation - where you can actually examine the nature of mind and reality - is only possible after you've developed unwavering concentration. Before that, you're just sitting there wrestling with thoughts.

In the yoga tradition, Patanjali's Yoga Sutras describe this same principle. The very second sutra states: "Yoga is the stilling of the fluctuations of the mind" (yogas chitta vritti nirodha). The entire system recognizes that until the mental waves settle, until attention can be held steady, no deeper realization is possible. That's why dharana (concentration) must come before dhyana (meditation) and samadhi (absorption).

Even in Zen, which seems so simple and direct with its "just sitting," masters spend years developing what they call "one-pointed mind" before insight emerges. The famous Zen saying goes: "You should sit in meditation for twenty minutes every day - unless you're too busy; then you should sit for an hour." Why? Because a scattered mind needs even more training to develop focus.

Why is this so crucial for dance practice? Remember the whirlpool metaphor from Part 1? When I'm caught in the tip of that whirlpool, spinning in endless ego loops - "What will people think? Am I doing this right? I look stupid. That person is judging me" - the only way out is to place my attention somewhere else, somewhere beyond the mental chatter. But if my attention is weak and scattered, if it's like a flashlight with dying batteries flickering all over the place, I can't hold it steady long enough to escape those loops.

The ego mind is like a hyperactive monkey, jumping from branch to branch. Without trained attention, I'm at its mercy. I'll start dancing, and within seconds I'm lost in thoughts about work, relationships, what I'll eat for dinner. My body might be moving, but I'm not really present. I'm missing the magic.

The Best Way to Sharpen Attention: Meditation

In this next section, I'm going to share everything I've learned about meditation.

After trying every method imaginable - from apps to breathing techniques to visualization - I discovered that there's really only one practice that genuinely sharpens attention like a blade: the ancient technique of Anapana meditation from the Vipassana tradition. Let me give you the tips and insights I've gathered about making meditation actually work.

The Anapana Triangle Technique - True Attention Training

I lost so much time meditating badly because I didn't understand this fundamental distinction. I was doing what most people do - following my breath, counting breaths, using mantras, visualizing light. These practices might make you feel peaceful, but they don't sharpen attention. They actually keep it scattered, just in a more pleasant pattern.

The Technique

The Setup: Find a quiet place where you won't be disturbed. Sit on a cushion on the floor - the firmer the surface, the better. If you're not flexible, use a higher cushion to elevate your hips above your knees.

For the posture, a technique from my yoga teacher training: First, lean forward with your hands on the floor in front of you, really flattening your lower back. Then slowly rise to vertical while keeping that lower back curve. Place your arms at your sides. This naturally stacks your spine.

The Practice: Close your eyes. Bring your complete attention to the small triangular area between your upper lip and the entrance of your nostrils - that tiny triangle of skin right there, maybe one square inch of sensation.

The crucial part: Do not follow the breath into your body. Don't track it down your throat, into your lungs, through your belly. Stay only on this triangle.

Why? Because when I follow the breath through my body, my attention is still moving around - from the nose, to the throat, to the chest, to the belly. It's like polishing a blade instead of sharpening it. I'm making my attention smoother, but not more precise. I want to forge it into a laser.

In this tiny triangle, notice everything:

• The temperature difference between inhale (cool) and exhale (warm)
• Each individual hair and how the air moves past them
• The subtle touch of air on your skin
• Any tingling, pulsing, or vibration
• The difference in sensation between left and right nostril
• The way the air flow changes - sometimes stronger, sometimes softer
• The exact point where you first feel the air touch your skin

Don't add mental objects. This is crucial. No counting breaths (1, 2, 3...). No mental words ("in," "out"). No visualizations of the breath as light or energy. Why? Because the moment I add a mental object, I've split my attention between the physical sensation and the mental construct. I'm training pure, single-pointed physical awareness.

What Will Happen

At first, I might maintain focus for maybe 10 seconds before a thought pulls me away. That's completely normal. My mind will create incredibly convincing reasons why I need to think about something right now. "Oh, I forgot to reply to that email!" "What if I'm doing this wrong?" "This is boring." "My back hurts."

The shocking thing is, I might be lost in thought for 3 full minutes before I even realize I'm thinking. I'll suddenly "wake up" and realize I've been planning my entire week instead of focusing on my breath. This is normal! This is the practice.

Think of it like training a puppy. You put the puppy (your attention) in one spot (the triangle). It immediately wanders off. You gently bring it back. It wanders off again. You bring it back. No anger, no frustration - this is exactly what's supposed to happen. The training is in the bringing back.

Or use the airplane autopilot metaphor: An airplane is never perfectly on course. It's constantly adjusting - one degree left, one degree right, always correcting back toward the destination. Meditation is the same. I deviate into thoughts, correct back to the triangle, deviate again, correct again. The skill is in how quickly I notice the deviation and how smoothly I return.

Creating a Practice That Actually Works

Daily Structure: Start with 15 minutes every day. Same time, same place. I do it immediately after waking because that's my only consistent anchor point when traveling. Find your anchor - maybe it's right before bed, after your morning coffee, or before dinner.

Use a timer app like Insight Timer. It shows consecutive days of practice, and when you see "25 days in a row," you won't want to break the streak. It's silly but it works.

Before you start, take 3 seconds to set a firm intention: "For the next 15 minutes, I will do my absolute best to keep my attention on this triangle." Without this intention, I drift into daydreaming before the first minute is up.

The Progress Markers: After each session, spend 2 minutes journaling:

1. What thoughts pulled me away most? (Work? Relationships? Planning? Worries?)
2. How many breaths could I follow without interruption? (At first, maybe 1-2. After a month, maybe 5-6. After three months, maybe 10-15.)
3. How quickly did I notice I was thinking? (This is the real progress - going from 3 minutes of unconscious thinking to 30 seconds to eventually catching thoughts as they arise)
4. What was my ratio of awareness vs. thinking? (Even 10% awareness is good at first. After three months, maybe 40-50%.)

Things That Make the Practice More Enjoyable

End with Gratitude: After your timer goes off, spend 30 seconds in genuine gratitude. "Thank you, life, for this moment. Thank you for this practice. Thank you for this body, this breath." This completely changes how I feel about meditation. Instead of "Ugh, that was hard," I end with "I'm grateful."

Group Practice: If possible, create or join a meditation group. When others are waiting for you at 7 AM, you'll show up. Plus, when multiple people meditate together, there's an energetic field that deepens everyone's practice. It's palpable - the room feels different, meditation goes deeper.

Pre-Work Mini Sessions: Before any focused work, I do 1-2 minutes of triangle meditation. I enter flow states immediately instead of needing that usual 10-15 minute warm-up period.

Progress Timeline

• Week 1-2: I'm mostly lost in thought, catching myself every few minutes
• Week 3-4: I start catching thoughts faster, maybe after 30-60 seconds
• Month 2: I can maintain focus for 15-30 seconds at a time
• Month 3: I experience moments of deep concentration, maybe 45-60 seconds of pure focus
• Month 6: I can maintain steady attention for several minutes, thoughts arise but don't capture me

This is when things get interesting. When my attention becomes this sharp, I can direct it anywhere - into dance, into creativity, into presence with others. I've forged a tool that will serve me for life.

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Movement Practices

Once I've developed some stability in sitting practice, I bring this sharpened attention into movement.

Practice 1: One-Pointed Focus in Movement

Stand in your dance space. Choose a single point of focus - it could be your heartbeat, a candle flame you visualize in your chest, or the sensation of breath in your nostrils. Begin to move, slowly at first, while maintaining complete attention on this single point.

The challenge? My body will be moving, music might be playing, but my attention stays unwavering on that one point. When I notice my mind has wandered (and it will, hundreds of times), I simply return to my point of focus without judgment.

Start with just 3 minutes. Build up to 10, then 20. This trains attention to remain steady even while everything else is in motion.

Practice 2: The Attention Anchor

During any dance session, choose an "anchor" - one specific body sensation to return to whenever you feel lost or overwhelmed. Maybe it's the feeling of your feet touching the floor, or the expansion of your ribs as you breathe.

Every few minutes, no matter how wild or free the dance becomes, return your full attention to this anchor for 10 seconds. It's like touching base with home before venturing out again. This builds capacity to direct attention at will.

Practice 3: The Awareness Pulse

Set a timer to go off every 5 minutes during a dance session. When it rings, freeze exactly where you are. In that stillness, sharpen your attention by asking:

• What position is my body in right now?
• What am I thinking in this exact moment?
• What emotion is present?
• What do I hear, see, feel?

Then continue dancing. This practice builds ability to suddenly focus attention with laser precision, even in the midst of flow.

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Part 2: Deepening Your Access to Different Types of Awareness

Now that I've sharpened my attention into a precision instrument, I need to expand what I can access with that attention. Most of us live our entire lives aware of maybe 5% of what's actually happening in our bodies and consciousness. We're like people living in a mansion but only using one room.

Let me ask you something: Can you feel the inside of your heart right now? Not metaphorically, but literally - can you bring your awareness to the actual interior of your heart muscle? Can you feel the inside of a single tooth? The anterior surface of your spine - the front part that faces toward your organs? The inside of your liver? Your right kidney?

Most people have never felt these areas. They're like unexplored territories in your own body. These areas are constantly sending signals, constantly participating in your experience. You're just not conscious of them. Your awareness hasn't developed the sensitivity to pick up these signals.

It's like having a radio that can only tune into one or two stations when there are hundreds broadcasting. The signals are there - you just need to develop the sensitivity to receive them.

Why does this matter for dance? Because every part of my body that I'm not aware of is a part that can't fully participate in my movement. It's offline, disconnected. When I dance, I'm only dancing with the parts I can feel. Imagine if I could dance with my whole body - not just arms and legs, but organs, deep tissues, energy channels, even the spaces between my bones.

And it goes beyond just the physical. There's emotional awareness, energetic awareness, mental awareness, spatial awareness, intuitive awareness. Each type opens up different possibilities for movement, different qualities of experience. When I can consciously shift between these different types of awareness, I become like a musician who can play multiple instruments instead of just one note.

Practice 4: The Deep Body Scan Journey

This practice opens somatic and interoceptive awareness to parts of your body you've never consciously felt:

Begin lying down. I'm going to explore territories in my body that are unconscious.

Start with your feet, but go deeper than usual. Can you feel:

• The space between each toe bone?
• The arch of your foot from the inside?
• The individual muscles between your metatarsals?
• The pulse of blood through your feet?

Move up to your legs:

• Can you feel the inside of your shin bone?
• The back of your kneecap?
• The deep muscles behind your thighbone?
• The pulse of your femoral artery in your groin?

Now the really subtle areas:

• Feel into your pelvis. Can you sense your sacrum? The individual vertebrae?
• Move awareness into your organs. Start with your bladder - can you feel its shape, its fullness?
• Your intestines - can you feel the space they occupy?
• Your liver on the right side - its weight, its presence?
• Your stomach - not just hunger or fullness, but the organ itself?
• Your kidneys in your lower back - two distinct presences?

The heart and lungs:

• Can you feel your heart not just beating, but its actual shape in your chest?
• The interior chambers as blood moves through?
• Your lungs - not just breath, but the tissue itself?
• The space between your lungs and ribs?

The spine and deep structures:

• Feel each vertebra individually
• The anterior (front) surface of your spine
• The space inside your spinal column where the nerves run
• The deep muscles along your spine that you never consciously use

The head:

• Can you feel inside your skull?
• The weight of your brain?
• The inside of your teeth - each one individually?
• The roots of your teeth in your jaw?
• Your tongue - not just the surface but its deep muscular structure?
• The space behind your eyes?

Spend 45 minutes to an hour on this complete scan. When you then begin to dance, you'll find movement arising from parts of your body that were previously "asleep." Your kidney might initiate a turn. Your liver might lead a gesture. Your deep spine might finally come alive.

Practice 5: The Five Streams of Awareness

Dance while cycling through different types of awareness. Each one opens different possibilities:

Visual Awareness (3 minutes): Let your eyes completely guide your movement. Respond to:

• Colors pulling you in different directions
• Shapes suggesting movements
• Light and shadow creating rhythms
• The negative space between objects
• Movement in your peripheral vision

Auditory Awareness (3 minutes): Close your eyes, let sound alone move you:

• Not just the music but ALL sounds
• The high frequencies that usually go unnoticed
• The bass you feel in your bones
• The silence between sounds
• Your own breath and heartbeat as part of the soundscape

Somatic Awareness (3 minutes): Focus entirely on internal body sensations:

• Temperature variations across your skin
• Pressure and weight in different body parts
• The stretch and contraction of muscles
• Joint sensations - compression, rotation, gliding
• Internal movements - pulse, digestion, breath

Emotional Awareness (3 minutes): Let emotions be the sole guide:

• Not thinking about emotions but feeling them directly
• Where do they live in your body?
• What movement do they want?
• Can you let micro-emotions express - not just big feelings but subtle mood shifts?

Energetic Awareness (3 minutes): Feel for the subtle currents:

• The tingling of life force in your hands
• Energy moving up your spine
• The field around your body
• Places where energy feels stuck or flowing
• The energetic connection between body parts

Repeat the full cycle. Notice how each type of awareness creates completely different movement qualities, different ways of being in space.

Practice 6: Awareness of Awareness - The Meta View

While dancing, develop the capacity to be aware that you're aware. This is subtler but interesting:

Start dancing normally. Then, without changing your movement, shift your attention to notice:

• "I am aware that I'm dancing"
• "I am aware that I'm aware of dancing"
• "There is awareness of awareness happening"

It's like zooming out to see yourself from a slight distance while still being fully in your body. You're simultaneously the dancer and the witness of the dance.

This creates a spacious quality, as if there's more room inside your experience. You're not caught in the dance - you're aware of being in the dance. Start with just moments of this double awareness.

Practice 7: The Expansion and Contraction Breath

This trains your awareness to extend beyond your body's boundaries:

Lie down and breathe naturally. With each inhale, let your awareness expand:

• First breath: Awareness fills your whole body
• Second breath: Extends an inch beyond your skin
• Third breath: Extends a foot around you
• Fourth breath: Fills the room
• Fifth breath: Extends beyond the room

With each exhale, let it contract back to your body. After 10 cycles, stand and dance while maintaining this expanding and contracting awareness. You're training consciousness to be fluid, not fixed to your physical boundaries.

Practice 8: Multi-Dimensional Awareness

The advanced practice - maintaining multiple types of awareness simultaneously:

While dancing, try to hold:

• Awareness of your breath (constant backdrop)
• Awareness of your emotional state (what am I feeling?)
• Awareness of the space around you (peripheral vision active)
• Awareness of being aware (meta-cognition active)

It's like juggling multiple balls of attention. At first, I drop them constantly. But gradually, I develop the capacity to hold multiple streams simultaneously. This is when dance becomes truly multidimensional.

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Part 3: Practices for Recognizing Your True Nature

This is the ultimate purpose of all these practices - not just to have interesting experiences, but to recognize your true nature beyond the ego structure. Everything we've done so far - sharpening attention, expanding awareness - has been preparation for this recognition.

This is a direct investigation into the nature of your experience right now. Who or what is aware of your thoughts? Who or what is aware of your body? Who or what is aware of being aware?

When I really look, I can't find a "thing" that's aware. I can't locate a self that's having these experiences. I find only awareness itself - spacious, empty, yet vividly present. This awareness isn't personal. It's not "my" awareness - it's awareness itself, temporarily focused through the lens of what appears to be me.

Practice 9: The Neti Neti Dance - "Not This, Not This"

This ancient Vedantic practice adapted for movement systematically reveals what you are NOT:

Begin dancing. As you move, systematically recognize:

Physical movements:

• Move your arm: "I am aware of this arm moving, therefore I am not the arm"
• Feel your legs: "I am aware of these legs, therefore I am not the legs"
• Notice your whole body: "I am aware of this body, therefore I am not the body"

Sensations:

• Feel pleasure: "I am aware of pleasure, therefore I am not pleasure"
• Feel pain: "I am aware of pain, therefore I am not pain"
• Feel tired: "I am aware of tiredness, therefore I am not tiredness"

Emotions:

• Feel joy arise: "I am aware of joy, therefore I am not joy"
• Feel sadness: "I am aware of sadness, therefore I am not sadness"
• Feel fear: "I am aware of fear, therefore I am not fear"

Thoughts:

• Notice planning: "I am aware of planning, therefore I am not the planner"
• Notice judging: "I am aware of judging, therefore I am not the judge"
• Notice remembering: "I am aware of memories, therefore I am not the memories"

Keep dancing while holding the question: "If I'm not any of these things I can observe, what am I?"

Don't try to answer with your mind. Let the question work on you. Eventually, you might touch into the pure awareness that observes everything but cannot itself be observed. You might recognize yourself as the space in which all experience appears.

Practice 10: The Dissolving Practice - Melting Boundaries

Dance with the intention of dissolving the sense of being a separate self:

Stage 1 - Feel your edges:

• Dance while feeling your skin as a boundary
• Notice the sense of "me in here" and "world out there"
• Exaggerate this separation - make yourself very solid and defined

Stage 2 - Soften the boundaries:

• Imagine your skin becoming porous
• Feel the air moving through you, not just around you
• Let the music enter your cells, not just your ears
• Sense the space inside your body connecting with the space outside

Stage 3 - Dissolve into space:

• Let the sense of solid body dissolve
• Feel yourself as patterns of sensation arising in space
• Notice: is there really a border where "you" end and space begins?
• Allow the sense of "dancer" to dissolve into just "dancing happening"

Stage 4 - Recognition:

• You haven't disappeared - you've recognized what you always were
• You're not the dancer - you're the awareness in which dancing appears
• The body moves in you, not the other way around

Practice 11: The Void Dance - Dancing from Emptiness

Based on Buddhist emptiness practices, this reveals the source from which all movement arises:

Entering the void: Sit completely still for 5-10 minutes with eyes closed. Don't meditate on anything - just rest in the space of awareness itself.

Feel into the emptiness - not empty like "nothing," but empty like space that holds everything. Vast, open, pregnant with potential.

Movement from stillness: Without deciding to move, let movement arise by itself from this emptiness. Don't create movement - let it emerge like:

• Bubbles rising from the ocean depths
• Plants growing from seeds
• Clouds forming in clear sky

You might realize you're not the one creating movement. Movement arises from the same source as thoughts, emotions, everything - the void of pure consciousness. You're that void, playing at having a body that dances.

Practice 12: The "I Am" Investigation

While dancing, repeatedly ask yourself: "What am I?"

Not "Who am I?" (that leads to stories and identity) But "WHAT am I?"

Each time you ask:

• Don't answer with words
• Don't answer with concepts
• Just feel into the direct experience of being
• What is this "I" that's aware right now?

Keep dancing while holding this question. Let your body explore it through movement. You might find:

• "I" can't be located
• "I" has no boundaries
• "I" is not separate from the awareness itself
• "I" is what everything appears in