Choiceless awareness is an experience connected to the practice of mindfulness. To the beginner it can be a confusing concept and to the experienced practitioner it is an obvious, basic state of being that has always been there and will always be there. To further confuse the matter I will start my description with an apparent contradiction. Choiceless awareness is the place from which skillful choice comes. Choiceless awareness is in fact a state of being where choice is not present. It is the full acceptance of the present moment which allows us to just be with what is happening or not happening. I would compare it to the gears in a car. You have forward, reverse, and park. Neutral would be choiceless awareness. Imagine what it feels like to be in neutral compared to the other gears and we can get a sense of what choiceless awareness feels like. It can also be viewed as holding the potential for everything and anything. It is from this stance that we find the complete freedom to choose since we are then choosing from a completely neutral and unbiased place. We are actually choosing without the external pressures that are usually present to all of us. To be able to choose this way increases the odds that we will choose wisely since we are connected to that part of ourselves that allows for the largest vision of possibilities. Sensing all possibilities gives us the flexibility to make informed skillful choices.
I first came across choiceless awareness while watching my thoughts. From time to time I would notice some space between thoughts. As my practice deepened, the spaces between my thoughts widened until the spaces were occupying most of my watching. Not only did my thoughts slow down but this new awareness of the space between my thoughts deepened until I realized that this was “the ground of being” and was characterized by inner silence and stillness. From there I learned to shift into this choiceless awareness whenever I wanted and to this day that is where I hang out when I don’t need to be actively engaged in something. It is very restful, at the same time attentive and recharges my batteries. It prepares me to actively engage and connect in the most effective way in an instant.