Many of us live almost entirely in our heads. Our days are shaped by an ongoing inner commentary that plans, evaluates, remembers, and anticipates. Even when life is outwardly calm, the mind rarely rests. What we long for is not better thoughts, but a different way of Being with experience itself. This longing is often what draws people toward present moment awareness, not as a philosophy to adopt, but as a quiet return from mental noise to what is actually being lived, here and now.

Present moment awareness begins with a simple turning. Attention shifts away from the constant voice in the head and gently moves toward direct experience. Sensation replaces interpretation. Feeling replaces analysis. Life is no longer filtered exclusively through ideas and concepts, but is met as it unfolds in the body. This turning is not an effort to silence thought, but a soft movement of Openness that allows awareness to settle into what is already present.

Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the NOW the primary focus of your life.
— Eckhart Tolle

This realization is not something to be achieved. It is something to be recognized. Present moment awareness is already here before thought comments on it. It is the simple fact of breathing, sensing, and inhabiting the body. When attention rests in experience rather than in commentary, Openness reveals itself naturally, not as a technique, but as a way of meeting life without resistance.

A young child offers a simple illustration of what this Openness looks like. Before language is fully learned, a child lives primarily through the body, through movement, sensation, and direct relationship with the world. Experience is lived rather than conceptualized. There is no ongoing narrative about what should be happening or who the child is supposed to be. Life is immediate, intimate, and embodied.

This helps illuminate a puzzling instruction attributed to the Master Jesus.

Except yeh be converted, and become as little children, yeh shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.
— Matthew 18:3 (KJV)

The Kingdom spoken of here is not a place one goes to later. It names a state of open awareness, a way of Being prior to the sense of separation created by the idea of a personal self. To become as a little child is not to regress, but to return, to live once again from Presence rather than from thought alone. Read in this way, the teaching points toward embodied Openness and toward a way of living grounded in direct experience rather than belief or striving.

One of the simplest doorways into present moment awareness is the breath. Not the breath as something to control or improve, but the breath as something to trust. Breathing happens on its own, without instruction. When attention rests with the natural rhythm of inhalation and exhalation, awareness begins to anchor in the body. The mind softens. Experience is allowed rather than managed. This allowing is itself a form of Openness.

Breathing in, I calm body and mind.
Breathing out, I smile.
Dwelling in the present moment
I know this is the only moment.
— Thích Nhất Hạnh

As attention continues to return to the breath and the felt sense of the inner body, present moment awareness matures. It becomes less something we do and more something we live. Thought does not disappear, but it no longer dominates experience. Awareness settles into the body, and life is met directly, moment by moment, as it is.

In The Embodied Way, what has been explored here is Openness as a living principle of ROOTEDness. Openness is not something we achieve, but something we allow when attention rests in present moment awareness and experience is met through the body rather than through thought alone. As this allowing deepens, it naturally invites a re-orientation in how life is lived, a subtle shift in the direction from which experience is met. This unfolding is not forced or rushed. It matures through lived practice, through Embodiment and the gentle Discipline of returning. The next invitation of ROOTED will explore this re-orientation more fully, as Openness begins to shape not just moments of awareness, but the way life is habitually lived.

ROOTED Series

ROOTED is an invitation into The Embodied Way — a way of living that integrates awareness, trust, and lived practice. Each letter names a doorway into embodiment, first as a principle (ROOT) and then as a practice (ED).

• R – Return
  Returning to the immediacy of lived experience, again and again.
• O – Openness
  Cultivating a receptive posture toward what is arising, without resistance.
• O – Orientation
  Learning to orient toward what is life-giving rather than fear-based.
• T – Trust
  Trusting the intelligence of the body and the wisdom of direct experience.
• E – Embodiment
  Allowing awareness to be lived, felt, and expressed through the body.
• D – Discipline
  Establishing simple, compassionate practices that support integration over time.

ROOTED is not a concept to master, but a path to be walked — gently, honestly, and at your own pace. Each article in this series stands on its own, while also forming part of a larger rhythm of return and deepening.