Our Mind As An Instrument Of Awareness

Understanding the nature of the mind.

Mind is an object and any object can be witnessed.

In this sense we're witnessing the workings of the mind and we are the perceiver.

So it's possible for us to get to know about the mind and we do this all the time.

We witness our thoughts,

We notice if we're ruminating,

If we're catastrophic thinking,

If we're zoning out,

We learn how to witness the fluctuations of the mind.

The mind is also an instrument.

The eye is an instrument of seeing and our brain is an instrument through which the subtle mind works.

So again it's an instrument.

We are not our mind.

The mind is an instrument.

So we're going kind of up some levels here.

Awareness is a constant unbroken sense of self or being.

Awareness is this ongoing ability we have to observe,

Witness and perceive.

And awareness is not located in time and space.

The mind is.

So the mind has a general sense of where we are.

We construct that timeline through memory,

Through our experiences and awareness is not like that.

It's not located in time and space.

So the mind is the instrument that awareness works through.

There's awareness and awareness has this tool,

This instrument.

And true awareness is pure consciousness beyond the mental field.

When we're working with,

For instance,

If we're going into deeper meditation,

Oftentimes they'll say take your attention away from what's moving,

Which is the activities of the mind,

And bring your attention to what is still.

And as we're bringing our attention to what is still,

We're going lower than the mental field.

We're going into pure consciousness.

And the mind is a kind of organism that's organically related to the physical body.

So the physical body has a brain.

The brain has functions.

We can perceive what's going on with the mind.

We don't have a mind without our physical body.

We do have awareness.

Awareness is not limited to the body or to time and space.

Let's take a breath or two and just sit with that for a minute.

What's your experience with that?

And what difference does it make to know that?

Or even if you don't agree with it.

The mind is an instrument that awareness works through.

True awareness is pure consciousness beyond the mental field.

This is how we construct reality.

We have all these little points of observations,

Of perceptions.

The mind doesn't actually notice everything at once.

It just notices little bits.

A series of lightning flashes is more than a continuous stream of awareness.

So the mind is always in motion,

And the mind is the prime point from which ideas of time and space are constructed.

So we're talking again about the mind that is the tool of awareness.

We can't arrive at the whole through these fragments.

So each mind has its own points and perspectives.

And he's saying this is an expression of limitations.

This is not an expression of wholeness.

The mind makes up our reality through the perceptions that we have.

So we have all of these little points.

And sometimes you look at the drawings that are made up of just little points of pencil.

As they fill in those points,

You can start to see,

Oh,

I'm starting to get a sense of a face or of a nose or something.

The mind is like that.

It just pulls out all of these little things,

And then it gathers all the evidence that it has,

And then it makes a bunch of leaps or assumptions.

And from there,

It constructs its reality.

When we withdraw our awareness from our senses,

Our physical body,

We still have all of the thoughts and feelings.

So we still have all of what was projected onto the screen,

The mind.

We still have all of that.

And the mind isn't still,

But we can go deeper than the mind.

We can leave the mind as a tool behind and go deeper into awareness,

Which is where the stillness is.

I thought we could do a few minutes of experimentation here.

Let's start with a tree.

You've got a tree outside your window.

You can look at that.

You bring your attention to a tree.

You could close your eyes and imagine a tree.

What are some of the points of perception?

We have a trunk.

We have a ground.

We have color.

We have shape.

We assume that it's spring,

Since there are blossoms on the tree.

It's not a forest.

It's a manicured lawn.

So we would make some assumptions about that.

Notice when you direct your attention to this tree or to a different one.

See if you could pull apart all of the different pieces that your mind puts together to form that idea of a tree.

And of course,

We bring in a bunch of other things too from our past experience.

We might know what kind of tree this is.

We might bring in concern about the environment.

Is this tree getting enough oxygen?

We also might bring in a gratitude that this tree is taking in the carbon dioxide that we breathe out and then breathing out oxygen to us.

There's a lot of different elements in our mind when we look at a tree and form the idea of a tree.

And now let's work with emotion.

Those really strong emotions tend to blow through.

Look at how closely love and hate are bound together and how emotions fluctuate like waves on the sea.

If you were to bring in a neutral emotion,

Something that's not very strong,

Maybe just a sense of an appreciation for the clerk at the store who was nice to you and you had a nice little interaction for a moment,

Where you look around the space that you're in and you appreciate what's there.

And then if you bring your attention to something or someone that you hate,

Maybe you hate reckless drivers or you hate people who smoke,

Whatever that might be,

Bring to mind something that you have a very strong negative emotion about.

Notice how that feels in your body,

What's happening in your body as you're noticing that.

Usually when we bring that up,

We bring it up with images,

With words,

Might be specific memories.

Notice how that feels in your body.

Did your breath change?

Do you have sensation?

And then switch it over now to someone or something that you love.

Let go of the negative and focus now on the positive.

You might be working with the same thing or something different.

Notice that it's rarely stable.

If I think about one of my grandchildren,

For instance,

I love them.

I kind of have an internal smile when I think about them.

And I also really want them to be happy.

And then my mind might go to something else.

But how could they be happy with everything that's going on in the world?

Or to notice what's happening with your thoughts as well?

Do we have these emotions?

Let's stay with the love for a moment.

For something,

Someone,

We give it about a minute and see what else is coming through.

Notice your body and your breath as well.

Now notice how hard it is to just maintain your awareness of the love.

Emotions just kind of flow,

They fluctuate.

And then think back or review your last minute or two and notice how thoughts came in.

One thought follows the next thought follows the next.

It's like it moves obsessively in its memory grooves.

So we have so many associations.

We talk about this all the time.

We have associations with the sensations and energy in our body because of stored trauma.

But also that's how the mind works.

It takes all these little points and brings them into some kind of a coherent belief or perception.

We have this compulsive erratic flow of thoughts.

Sometimes we can trace one point to the next to the next.

Oftentimes we're just like somewhere completely different.

We're like,

Wow,

How did I ever get here?

And so now let's look at ego,

This I thought.

This is the inherent reference point,

The center of the mind.

Basically,

We're all self-referenced or self-centered.

Everything in the world originates here in us,

In our own mind,

Our own sense of who we are.

And we care about other people.

But really,

If you were to just take a minute or two to tune into what is my reference point for everything else,

It's really how it affects us.

What we see out of our own eyes is what we see.

The memories that we have that are coming up are our own memories.

Our responses are based on our past,

A lot of it.

A lot of it's based on our nervous system.

You notice the random thoughts that come into the mind and how they relate back to me,

The I thought or the ego.

Sometimes it's like with fear,

It's like,

Is this health concern going to get worse?

Of course,

And I'm not at all saying this is wrong.

It's just this is the way the mind works.

Is it going to get worse?

What's going to happen in the future?

We get into catastrophic thinking.

We might have an outrage about something.

How dare they treat me like that?

We might have shame.

We have this recall of a memory or look on someone's face where they showed us contempt.

And then we go back into our memory and we feel that in our body.

All related to me.

This is the mind.

This isn't awareness.

This isn't pure consciousness that we're talking about.

This is the tool of awareness,

The mind.

If you were to let yourself go through these levels,

We go through the level of direct perception.

We have the I thought,

We have our emotions,

Our memories,

Our perceptions about things.

And if you were to think about all of that is happening kind of on the surface of a lake,

The whole functioning of the mind happens at that level.

And then let yourself go deeper.

Bring your attention away from what's moving,

Your attention away from the activities of the mind,

And bring your attention into awareness,

Into this stillness in the mind.

And notice that probably thoughts will come into the mind.

You can notice those and we can still remain in touch with awareness at the same time.

We can use the mind and be aware of the mind as a tool or an instrument of awareness.

And then also be aware of awareness itself.