How is our life different when we are truly aware? How does our experiencing of life change when we are mostly present and not lost in mind-made stories and narratives? What is the impact we have on others when we are responsible for ourselves and our actions? When we lead not from a victim place, but from a place of full awareness, responsibility, courage, and agency?

As we come to the end of the course, everything starts to merge together, and we become more intimate with the ever-present, never-ending, all-encompassing, formless Now. We learn to return here over and over again.

In this episode we enter the famous and extremely profound teaching and pointer of Zen Buddhism: Beginner's Mind. We fall back into the raw and direct experience of our senses, our curiosity and our not knowing minds. Taking back a step to awareness. We allow ourselves not to know, not to have an opinion, and to observe life and the world not expecting anything to be in any particular way. What is here when we can be total beginners?

Once again, we practice staying present in the here and now, with open eyes, and aware of all senses, all sensations, all thoughts, emotions and thoughts, allowing everything to be exactly as it is. We are present in the here and now as awareness itself.

In this episode, we pay attention to how life differs in terms of simply experiencing it, versus making a mental construction of it. We practice going beyond the mental constructions, not reacting to them, while simple acknowledging them as they are: mental constructions. We also learn to stay in the direct, raw experience that life is. Always, in the here and now. Allowing mental constructions to be there, and noticing when they help us, when they limit or hinder us, and learning to differentiate them from life itself.

In this episode, we practice exploring our lives beyond words. What is life, when we stop narrating it to ourselves? How is existence when there are no words that need to describe it? How is life experienced from a direct and raw perspective?  

In this episode, we keep strengthening the muscle of "shifting back to context". Learning to return to the here and now, to the experiential realm of of embodied lives!

We enter the last third part of the course. In this episode we start getting comfortable with integrating these small meditations, glimpses or awareness exercises - call it as you may - into our day to day lives. Understanding that what we discover in our meditation exercises is no different to how we are and behave in our every day lives. We practice anywhere and everywhere, with open and closed eyes, with noise and without it, in anger, sadness, joy, and fear!

In this episode we discover the simple realisation that human suffering is the result of fighting reality or not accepting it the way it is. We practise noticing when we unconsciously do this - as we physically and mentally contract and ask life to be what it is not - and release this contraction by returning back to the here and now: to the breath, the physical sensations and the 5 senses. By practicing "closing the gap" and a experiential and conceptual level.

In the episodes 17-18-19, we will be focusing on how to be with and manage difficult emotions. In this episode we focus on learning to "nurture" the emotion that is angry, sad, scared, insecure, uncomfortable ... We learn to create an space between the emotion and our full lived experience, learning to recognise that we are not our emotions. Emotions are an integral part of our lived experience but are not the full lived experience. By creating that space, we learn to pause and not blindly react to the emotion, but consciously respond, from a place or awareness, to the here and now.

In the episodes 17-18-19, we will be focusing on how to be with and manage difficult emotions. In this episode we focus on learning to investigate what the present emotions are trying to tell us / to communicate to us, as a listening exercise, without reacting. We learn to recognise emotions as important data that are helping us navigate the experience of life, while keeping us safe.

In the next episodes (17-18-19) we will be focusing on how to be with and manage difficult emotions. In this episode we focus on learning to recognise and accept the fact that difficult emotions are an integral part of the human experience. And therefore, it is not about trying not to experience difficult emotions, but learning to accept them as part of life. Emotions evolved to keep us safe. We start learning how to listen to them so that we can respond to them in a conscious and healthy way.

In this episode we once again practice what we have been learning throughout this course: to let things be as they already are. Recognising that the present is always and already here, the past is already gone, and the future is yet to come. So starting to recognise and accept how things are so that we can bring our focus to what is under our control right now, and letting go of the rest.

In this episode, we start practicing to recognise thoughts as thoughts, by taking a step back and creating a space between the thought and the lived experience. Learning that we are not our thoughts or our emotions. But emotions and thoughts are part of our lived experience. 

In this episode, we start bringing our ability to be in the here and now to every aspect of our lives. To do that, we start practicing how it feels to "meditate" with open eyes, and to remain present throughout the day. 

In this episode we learn to recognise how the mind works, and how it needs concepts to make sense of reality. Understanding concepts as a simplification of reality, we start exploring how the concept of "I", "me", mine" work, and their impact on our lived experience. We start recognising the difference between "our" lived experience free of concepts and words (including "I"), and the conceptual realm. 

In this episode we learn to keep coming back to the here and now. Returning to the all allowing, calm, open, and every present natural awareness.

In this episode we will learn to keep on recognising when we want to interfere and engage with thoughts, react to them, and fight reality. So that we can keep practising the coming back to the here and now effortlessly.

In this session, we keep practicing the art of allowing the present moment to be as it is. We start learning to recognise repetitive thought patterns, and not to engage with them. While letting go of reacting to the mind's tendency to want to control "how I should feel or be", "how life should be", we practice recognising our ability to enjoy allowing and not engaging, and returning back into the present moment.

In this session, once our attention has naturally shifted back to the sense of aliveness and experiencing - expanding into the full awareness of the here and now - we practice the art of allowing everything to be exactly as it is. I use the word "art" because we are learning to appreciate what it means to be human, in all its complexity and simplicity. Letting go of trying to control what "I think my experience should be", of how I should feel or be, and tapping into my curiosity to explore what actually IS here and now.