Turning Toward Spaciousness
Sitting is an act of expansion within silence and stillness.
The Space Inside the Silence:
What if the most expansive place we could ever know is already within us?
In a world that invites us constantly outward—toward problems to solve, gadgets to get, identities to perform, and experiences to chase—a sitting practice turns us gently inward.
Not to escape the world, but to rediscover a spaciousness so quiet and close to us that it often goes unnoticed. A field so intimate it can only be entered through stillness.
Take a moment to relax your focus. Let your awareness expand into the space around you. Notice what shifts. Notice the sense of openness that is there.
Sitting is not a technique. It is not a tool to accumulate mastery. It is not a hack for productivity. It is an act of expansion.
Every time you sit, you intentionally step out of your normal frame of reference. You drop the subject. You drop the object. This enables you to get bigger.
Not to gain anything. Or become more, or better, or improve.
You are not optimizing. You are going beyond. You are going beyond the small view of yourself, expanding into a fuller sense of being.
Sitting is not a form of getting or having. It is the practice of letting go and opening up to the spaciousness of your being. The emptiness of the space is not a flaw. It is not something to fear or avoid. It is the ground of your being.
When we sit, we develop a felt sense of vastness. Not as a concept, but as our lived reality. This is a presence that doesn’t demand us to do anything. We don’t make it happen. It’s already here, waiting for us to notice. The breath moves. The body softens and opens. Awareness spreads like the morning sun rising over the mountains.
As we sit more regularly, and deepen our practice, we learn to be comfortable resting in this inward space. Not grasping, not naming. Just relaxing and opening.
The spaciousness of our practice doesn’t mean detachment; it means we’re big enough to hold all of it—emotions, thoughts, anxiety, grief, uncertainty, and silence. And somehow, with the tenderness of feeling our way inward, we intuit that we are not alone.
As we practice this with regularity, you become capable of remaining in touch with the basic spaciousness of your being. This is a peace that is always present.
This is an inter-becoming that is vast and connected. Empty and full. Beyond and fully present, here and now.
Let us turn toward that.
Turning Toward Spaciousness
Below is a lightly edited transcript of an introduction to a Sitting Lab sitting.
“Welcome.
Stepping back from our usual patterns—habits of entangling ourselves with the objects of our minds and the concerns of our lives—we turn inward.
And, it seems like there’s nothing to see when we turn inward. But there is.
There is something to notice.
We notice that there is an experience of space.
An experience of spaciousness.
An experience of empty spaciousness.
And an experience of being aware within that spaciousness.
Coming into relationship with our internal experience is a fundamental and essential activity in our practice.
We don’t really have to do anything to make it happen— because it’s already there.
It’s just that usually we’re turned away from it. Occupied by something else.
But when we turn toward it, we can sense—intuitively—feel our way toward that inner space. That inner spaciousness.
We notice its quality. The quality of being vast, open.
As we sit, we become intimate with the experience of being in our body. With our breath. It can be helpful to stay with that. To stay with the sensations of the breath as it moves in and out of the body. Never stopping.
Our attention can rest somewhere along the process of inhaling or exhaling.
This settles the mind. Calms the nervous system.
So that we can really feel into a state of presence with the spaciousness within.
Together we engage in this practice.
Together we are opening to new possibilities, allowing ourselves to not know exactly where the benefit is.
We trust. We have faith that something is happening. And we dedicate ourselves to being of benefit.
To serve not only ourselves, but all living beings. People we know, and those we don’t. Living beings who are near and those very far away. Those we can see, and those we can’t see.
This is allowing our practice to expand, to be big, vast, and open.
This is allowing the benefit to flow through us and beyond us.
This is the spirit of our sitting.
We can sit silently now.
Rest here in open space for the remainder of the session.”
Each weekday, a small group of us sit quietly together four times a day, using Sitting Lab’s community platform. We invite you to check it out and join us if you believe that a regular, deepening sitting practice could help you become the fullest version of yourself.
On Sunday, June 29th, we offer our monthly Half-Day sit. If you want to go deeper in your practice, sit together with others, and learn more about Sitting Lab, this is a great place to start. More info here.