The mind is not a tool that can operate independent of who we are. For the mind to function differently…. we must learn a different way of being. DTS xxxi
Since imagination is a form of inquiry I have been playing with ” what would it feel like to be an open, allowing interactive presence”? I am breaking apart this inquiry and investigating its aspects. I sit with “open” on the in breath “and allow” on the out breath until a more open and allowing state is evoked. With practice this more open state becomes linked to a focus on the inhale and exhale of breath and is available as I go through the day. This is helpful when reactivity is noted and signals that an afflictive way of knowing is in play.  “Open and allow” relaxes reactive states as they arise.
These open and allowing aspects of space need not be confused with passivity for they seem to be a connective portal through which interactivity naturally flows. To date this way of being appears as a connective ease, comfort and contact.
Hayward
It seems that our usual responses are reactive and ego centric, designed to either protect or promote. The shift allowed by the above mentioned practice dilates the “I” that sees, relaxing the characteristic way of knowing. Reactive ways of knowing tend to be narrow, constrictive, tense and separating. By practicing “open and allow”, pathways of knowing are opened, enabling more room and ease. Defensiveness is disarmed as the self at the center becomes center less.
Devoting time each morning pairing the inhale and exhale of breath to the open allowing aspects that space affords makes possible the summing of a more open condition when reactive constrictions occur in daily interactions.
Hayward