With so much emphasis on what changes in meditation, it’s easy to overlook what remains the same - awareness. In other words, the context, rather than just the contents of consciousness.

Using awareness-based mindfulness, we can decouple our identification with the contents (thoughts, feelings + sensations) and learn to operate from the context. It’s a shift that fosters connection to everything that arises, but retunes what ultimately experiences it all. 

These practices - found throughout various wisdom traditions and observable via modern neuroscience - allow for a fundamentally different way of being (or inter-being). Though perhaps a bit unfamiliar, the good news is that this capacity is already installed. It just requires a few simple shifts, all of which can be done in the midst of daily life.

Unlike “deliberate” (subject-object based) mindfulness, these practices don’t rely on effort. They also don’t rely on concentration from the everyday thinking mind, or even a “meditator” at the center of experience. It’s akin to running a different operating system.. rather than just downloading a new “more-mindful” program. 

Curiously, many of the traits that bring people to meditation - such as freedom, compassion, focus and clarity - spontaneously arise from this dimension without our help. They don’t need to be cultivated, only recognized.

Still, words tend of fall short when describing these practices. So, our focus will be on what arises directly via experience. There’s nothing to believe, only experiences to be had - that fit easily within any worldview. 

By moving beyond concepts and instead training in the “context,” a fundamentally different way of being is experienced. The contents of consciousness and their ultimate nature are felt simultaneously.

From this new view, seasoned and new practitioners alike tend to find that what they are looking for is already here. The new operating system can then be applied to whatever interests us.