Master Andy Baggott

When practising our Shibashi, we are seeking to get to a place where we are present in awareness. Awareness is beyond space, time and duality. It is a place of no thought where we simply observe. It is tricky to describe awareness because the more you try to describe it, the further you actually get from the experience!

However, what we can do is say what awareness is not. It is not about there but more about here; it is not about then but more about now. During our practice, if we notice ourselves thinking about there, we can let that go and we will naturally find ourselves here. If we notice ourselves thinking about then (then being either the past or the future), we let it go and this naturally bring us into now. This idea of letting go creates space for what can be. If we are not focussed on another place, another time, another thing, then we create space that inevitably becomes about being here, in this moment. If we are clear about what awareness is not, we create room in which we can experience what it is. We don’t need to define what it is, just to be clear about what it is not. Then awareness reveals itself to us, it fills the space we have created by letting go of there and then.