This morning I stepped onto the back deck for my nature meditation. The sunlight was dappled on the trunk of the burgeoning crabapple tree. Its canopy was alive with the fluttering of nuthatches, chickadees, and robins. I could hear robins singing close by. The sky held the intense blue of fall, a backdrop for the green crabapple leaves and birch leaves turning golden. The air was crisp but not too cold on my skin. The scene drew me into its embrace,  the embrace of continuous, unbroken awareness– open-eyed meditation.

Nature has become, for me, the gateway to continuous, unbroken awareness. As I remain aware of my breathing in this setting, I feel I am “entering the Void with the eyes open.”***

*** Entering the void with the eyes open is what I call “open-eyed meditation.” The mind becomes increasingly silent and awareness of oneself and the object of perception sharpen and merge. “Mahasunya, the Great Void, is a transcendent state in which the subject has merged with the object.” (The Doctrine of Vibration, Mark S.G. Dyczkowski). “All of creation, and the vibrational sounds associated with it, exist in the vast silence of mahasunya, the Great Void. It is from this silence that they will emerge into boisterous activity.” (The Splendor of Recognition, Swami Shantananda)