Your Amazing Brain, and the Wheel of Awareness

Effortless Mindfulness – going to the center of awareness

The “Circle of Awareness”

Circles have been used for thousands of years to symbolize the relationship between awareness and the objects of awareness. In India, mandalas and yantras of various kinds, often illustrated with luminously beautiful imagery, have been created as ways to understand the relationship of spacious awareness and the vast universe of which we are aware.  Contemporary Christian contemplative John Main uses the wheel as a metaphor, and speaks of the “still point” at the center or ‘hub’ of the wheel.

Dan Siegel – psychiatrist and founder of the field of Interpersonal Neurobiology – has offered a scientific version of this ancient symbol. He created the “Wheel of Awareness” exercise to help people move toward greater mental, emotional, and interpersonal balance, ease, and effectiveness by understanding the distinction between awareness and the objects of awareness

Dr. Siegel has taught the exercise to thousands of people around the world many of whom report experiencing a profound peace, joy and spaciousness as a result.  In fact, the “Wheel of Awareness” exercise has been used regularly and successfully by children as young as 5 to learn to shift their attention from negative impulses and emotions to positive feelings and constructive behavior. There is an extensive explanation of its underlying principles in Dr. Siegel’s new book, “Aware.” The book “Masters of Mindfulness: How to Be Your Own Superhero,” written by black and Hispanic 5^thgraders from Oakland, CA will likely be interesting to any child learning mindfulness. Yet another helpful book for learning some simple methods to help develop the brain is Dan Siegel’s book, “The Whole Brain Child.”   

Here is a guided exercise for the Wheel of Awareness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODlFhOKahmk

Here is a simple explanation of what the Wheel of Awareness is about:

Imagine, he says, that your awareness is like a wheel. In the center, the “hub” of the wheel, is the experience of simply being aware.  Around the “rim” of the wheel is arrayed everything you’re aware of – thoughts, memories, feelings, sensations, places, people – everything that is contained “within” the experience of awareness.   From the calm, peaceful hub, centered in the experience of simply being aware, it becomes possible to view whatever is dancing around out on the rim without judgment - simply being aware of it without letting it pull you this way or that.

 Ultimately, all mindfulness exercises, in one way or another, involve freeing your attention from the objects of awareness on the “rim” of the “wheel” where it tends to get absorbed, and shifting it back to awareness itself at the center of the wheel, the “hub.”     As you train yourself, through repeated practice, to anchor your attention at the hub of the wheel, what happens is that the calm awareness of the center gradually expands to encompass, and even embrace, everything out on  rim.  I refer to it as “effortless” because as you become more familiar with this awareness which is always present underlying all of our experience, you don’t have to “try” to get in touch with it. All that is required is a gentle shift of your attention, from the rim (from our customary experience of being absorbed in the objects of awareness) to the hub, the center of the circle, to the experience of simply being aware.

This all-embracing, all-encompassing, non-judgmental awareness is the ideal condition for exploring difficult thoughts, emotions and behaviors in way that makes them much easier to change.

Here are some simple written instructions for distinguishing the “Awareness” at the center of the wheel from the “Objects of Awareness’ around the rim of the wheel. 

DistinguishingAwareness from the Objects of Awareness

 Begin by noticing  two aspects of your experience:

1.     The objects and activities around you 

2.     The awareness, which notices them 

Now, in a moment, you’re going to close your eyes.  When you do, notice that although all objects have disappeared, your awareness is still present.  
After a few moments, you’ll open your eyes again…

Now with your eyes open, bring your attention to the sounds in your environment.  Again, focus your attention on the two aspects of your experience – 
the sounds, and the awareness by which you hear them. 

Notice . . . when a sound disappears, the awareness is still present.  Sounds come and go, but the awareness remains, unchanged.
 

Now shift your attention to the sensations in your body.  

Again, attend to the two aspects of your experience – the sensations themselves, and the awareness within which the sensations arise. 

         

Notice that the sensations may come and go, but the awareness remains, unchanged. 


Now bring your attention to the thoughts and images passing through your mind. Just watch as the thoughts and images arise and fade away without getting caught up in them.



Notice the two aspects of your experience - the thoughts and images, and the awareness within which they arise. 

         

Notice that while thoughts and images come and go, the awareness is unchanged.


Now shift your attention to your emotions.

Observe them compassionately, without judgment, and without making any effort to change them.  

        

Again, notice the 2 aspects of your experience – the emotions, and the awareness within which they arise.  

         

The emotions may change, they may even be intense, but the awareness itself remains calm and undisturbed. 

As you get up to go on to your next activity, see if you can stay mindful of the awareness within which all the sights, sounds, sensations, thoughts, images, and emotions that make up your experience arise and pass away. 

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Any time you want, in the midst of any activity, you can practicing noticing the distinction between awareness and the objects of awareness to get a deeper sense of the powerful potential that open, heartful awareness carries within it.