Mindfulness Without All The Effort | Loch Kelly (Co-Interviewed By Matt Harris)

1. Relax the Small Self

Approach effortless awareness with curiosity, a willingness to experiment, and patience for frustration, understanding that the “small self” cannot achieve it; it must relax for the “awake self” to emerge.

2. Uncover Effortless Awareness

Effortless awareness is not achieved through concentration or focusing, but by uncovering or discovering an awareness that is already present and effortlessly aware from both inside and outside.

3. Identify as the Sky

Step out of the “cloud” of sensations and thoughts to recognize yourself as the “sky” of awareness, which is inherently free from fear and anxiety, allowing you to act from a holistic, non-thought-based perspective.

4. Embrace Natural Healing Awareness

Understand that effortless awareness is a natural, learnable, and deeply healing aspect of human consciousness that can address suffering at its root, rather than just being a calming technique.

5. Hold Conflicting Parts with Love

Use awake consciousness to observe conflicting internal parts, such as grief and anxiety, without letting them take over, offering a loving and accepting space for them to relax.

6. Cultivate Connected Self

Address feelings of loneliness by cultivating a connected sense of self through effortless awareness, which serves as an existential root of identity and can be integrated with contemporary psychology for wholeness.

7. Embrace Embodied Open-Heartedness

When exploring non-self, ensure you cultivate embodied awareness, open-heartedness, and a sense of connection and safety, rather than stopping at mere centerlessness or disembodied awareness.

8. Integrate Non-Dual with Reality

Integrate non-dual awareness with the practicalities of daily life, recognizing the need to navigate the physical world while simultaneously operating from an “awake, loving flow” that transcends the self-conscious, dualistic small self.

9. Seek Positive Presence

Instead of solely focusing on the absence of a self or center (via negativa), actively look for the positive presence of “awake awareness” that is centerless but has clarity and leads to compassionate activity (via positiva).

10. Progress to Loving Awareness

Progress from recognizing that “awareness doesn’t care” to realizing that “awareness is unconditionally loving and has compassionate activity” by first deconditioning and unhooking, then allowing connection to emerge.

11. Access Innate Love & Worthiness

Access innate love and worthiness by opening to awake consciousness, recognizing it as a fundamental self that has always been present and is capable of embracing and accepting parts that feel worthless.

12. Decenter and Embody Awareness

Decenter your awareness from being habitually located in your head and allow it to drop into your entire body, experiencing sensations and vibrations from within to achieve true embodiment.

13. Practice Panoramic Awareness

Practice “panoramic awareness” by relaxing your eyes, opening your peripheral vision, and then expanding awareness to include sounds and a pervasive sense of space behind and around you, feeling aware as this spaciousness.

14. Broaden Peripheral Awareness

Instead of directly searching for the “looker,” broaden your awareness to include peripheral vision and a corporeal sense, unhooking from focused attention to perceive from a wider, positive vantage point.

15. Inquire “What’s Here Now?”

Practice a simple inquiry, “What’s here now?” allowing the “problem solver” mind to relax, then feel what is aware and rest as that open, alert awareness, including all phenomena within its field.

16. Inquire “Effortless” & “Known by What?”

During meditation, introduce the word “effortless” into your mind, focusing on the inherent effortlessness of raw awareness, then inquire “known by what?” to shift perspective.

17. Feel the Not-Knowing

When asking “known by what?”, answer by feeling into the “not knowing that knows” rather than trying to conceptualize or label it with your mind.

18. Inquire “What” and “Where”

When investigating awareness, ask “what is aware?” or “where are you aware from?” instead of “who is aware?” to foster a more impersonal, non-local, and all-pervasive sense of awareness.

19. Focus on Awareness’s Recipient

Instead of noting or labeling arising phenomena, shift your interest to “who or what” they are arising to, allowing that awareness to manage the entire experience rather than your individual self.

20. Turn Awareness Around

To access effortless awareness, turn your awareness around to investigate “what’s behind the camera” or “what’s aware of the camera,” allowing for a quick shift to an effortlessly aware state.

21. Mingle Awareness with Space

Open your awareness to the space in the room, mingling with it to discern if you are aware of the space or as a spacious, panoramic awareness that is equally inside and out.

22. Observe Thoughts Calmly

Once your mind is calm, cultivate a mindful awareness to observe thoughts, urges, and emotions that arise, seeing them without getting caught up in them.

23. Question Awareness’s Source

After calming the mind, shift your awareness to observe your thoughts and ask yourself, “Am I aware from my thoughts, or am I aware of my thoughts?” and “Where am I aware of my thoughts from?” to identify the observer.

24. Move Beyond the Witness

While observing thoughts provides space, avoid getting stuck in the “witness consciousness” as it maintains a dualistic perspective; aim to move beyond this observer role.

25. Start with Breath Focus

Begin meditation by focusing on a single object, such as your breath or sensations in your body, to calm the scattered mind and develop stability.

26. Return to Focus

During meditation, if your mind wanders, recognize it as wandering and gently guide your attention back to your chosen object of focus.

27. Cultivate Choiceless Awareness

Expand your awareness from observing specific thoughts to a “big sky mind” or “choiceless awareness,” where you observe whatever arises—thoughts, sensations, emotions—without selecting an object.

28. Disengage from Metacognition

Recognize and disengage from the habit of metacognition or “checking” if you’re doing it right; instead, trust the non-conceptual flow of awareness and action, like walking, without needing a second opinion from the mind.

29. Integrate Glimpses Off-Cushion

Integrate meditative glimpses into daily life by moving from recognition to familiarization, taking awareness into action, and re-recognizing it throughout the day even after momentarily losing it.

30. Cultivate Flow State

Cultivate a “flow” state by not checking for correctness or engaging in self-consciousness, allowing natural engagement in activities like walking or conversing, trusting your implicit knowing.

31. Trust Awareness-Based Knowing

Trust your innate, awareness-based knowing for actions like walking, rather than creating a self-conscious “middle manager” of thought, allowing for natural responsiveness and egolessness.

32. Act from Heart-Centered Knowing

Drop into your body, take a deep breath, and feel an “extraordinary ordinariness” from a heart-centered awareness, allowing actions and thoughts to arise from this knowing without a separate “looker.”

33. Speak from Awake Awareness

Practice speaking from a state of “awake” awareness, allowing words to emerge naturally, and use physical cues like unhooking awareness and letting it drop into the body to guide yourself and others into deeper embodiment.

34. Recognize Hearer is Not “I”

Use the experience of hearing sounds to recognize that “whatever is hearing it” is not your conventional self or “I,” helping to separate the act of perception from self-identity.

35. Inquire “Where is the Hearer?”

For those oriented to sound, observe both external and internal sounds, treat thinking as inner hearing or mental sensations, and then inquire “where is the hearer?” to access spacious, pervasive awareness.

36. Cultivate Love from Connection

Access love by cultivating a feeling of connection, safety, and non-separation, which arises from a state of non-fear, non-worry, and a sense of well-being.

37. Practice Unconditional Acceptance

Cultivate unconditional acceptance by asking “Is that okay?” towards all arising experiences, including painful ones, fostering a sense of “okayness” with everything.

38. Don’t Take It Personally

Find relief by recognizing that you don’t have to take all experiences personally, allowing for a sense of detachment from suffering.

39. Tune into Pain Awareness

When experiencing pain, shift your focus from complaining about it to tuning into the awareness that is aware of the pain, rather than getting attached to the sensation itself.

40. Cultivate Awe for Love

Cultivate awe as a pathway to love, recognizing it as an experience of something bigger than yourself that is non-selfish, non-angry, and carries a sense of bliss.

41. Practice Glimpse Meditations

If feeling frustrated or intrigued by effortless mindfulness, engage in “glimpse practices” (e.g., using the Mindful Glimpses app) to gradually relax and learn to perceive the awareness that is already present.

42. Relax and Be Curious

When encountering challenging or ineffable concepts, relax your mind, approach with curiosity and humor, and allow the words to wash over you rather than trying to force understanding. This can lead to surprising insights.