z: Zen: Panoramic NOT zoom lens

So, last night at Young Urban Zen I had a kind of an "aha" moment. I'm still working it out in terms of my "sitting meditation" but in terms of being present for the rest of my life, it feels like a new and somewhat helpful way to look at things.
Halfway through meditation, Shundo (the Ino at the zen center), spoke up. It was really weird to be "interrupted" during zazen, especially by someone asking you questions, but I went with it. This is what he "asked" us (and how I responded):
Are your eyes open? (Well, they're kinda half lid, should I open them?)
Are your ears open? (Oh, hadn't thought about that, guess I should start listening to what's around me)
Is your chest open? (Oh yeah, gotta lift that up a little and broaden my shoulders)
Is your spine open? (Definitely not. Totally feel like all those vertebrae are stacked up on each other. How am I going to fix that? Sitting up taller just stretches them out... oh wait, maybe that opens them up.)
Is your mind open? (I actually didn't hear this one, I was too fixated on opening up my spine...)
And then I kept asking myself those same four questions over and over.
In response, my shoulders opened up, my chest lifted up, and there became this space that was rooted in my gut or my chest and radiated out, like the way light emanates from a lighthouse in the fog.
And then my thoughts started to come in and when they did, they narrowed that space, pushed in on its boundaries, like closing a pair of scissors. So I took another breath and tried to broaden that space again, to be open to everything around me, open to all possibilities. And the space opened up again, widened, radiated.

Often when I struggle with meditation, I remind myself to "return to the breath," to focus inward, to "quiet the mind." It feels like I'm trying to focus, to "zoom in" on that space where my mind is free from thoughts. But this concept of being open- literally having my eyes and ears open- this state of being somewhat vulnerable and willing to see everything with my eyes and ears, being attentive to EVERYTHING around me, not allowing my thoughts to narrow my perception of things, seems kind of true to what I think being present is all about. 
I tried to do this during meditation tonight and at first, it felt really active and a little frenetic. My eyes were scanning the wall in front of me and my ears were listening attentively to all the sounds of the street. It didn't feel very meditative or quiet. I tried it a few more times but then went back to focusing on my breath and quieting things down.
But during the day today, and last night after YUZ, I saw how much my thoughts limit me, how they narrow the possibilities of my experience. Sometimes this can be a comfort, especially when I'm afraid of what I think is going to happen, or when I'm not looking forward to certain events or interactions with people. But I see how my thoughts kind of cheat me out of the experience of life. It's kind of like how the first time you do something, if you know absolutely nothing about it, you often experience all of it and it's kind of magical. But the second time, you go in "knowing" it and it can be disappointing or even just plain boring.
I guess I had always thought of meditation as a "blocking out" of the world around me, and maybe it still is because it didn't work so well for me to be present when I was sitting in the zendo. But in terms of being present for the rest of my life; I feel like broadening my view, being alert, being open to whatever comes to me seems like a very true and somewhat healthy way to experience my existence.