The come into a comfortable seated position whatever posture works for you for meditation and simply begin by connecting with your own breathing process you can start by taking a few deep in and out breaths as an aid to helping you just let go you you but we don't force letting go we just notice where we're holding we're resisting and in that very noticing letting go happens all by itself you you when we sit to meditate generally things are stirred up you we notice that we notice that it's often difficult just to settle into calm into peace you because we caught in the momentum of doing of becoming you the mind racing ahead of itself into the future constant planning worrying imagining you you you you you what is it that can notice all this right now just as I say these words and offer these pointers what is it within you that notices this you there's the hearing faculty but the hearing faculty is not the thing that understands you if we're searching for peace and insight in our meditation or in our lives generally we can only really do this when we start to recognize our own awareness you you we start with the practice of mindfulness mindfulness,
The aspect of the mind which simply knows,
Which stands back and witnesses which simply knows.
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Which stands back carefully.
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Which stands parallel to God.
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Corps What does it witness?
It witnesses all the changing phenomena.
The bodily sensations are rising and ceasing.
The thoughts,
The dreamscape of the mind that keeps changing without any control of ours.
The sights,
The sounds,
The smells,
The tastes.
Our mindfulness recognises how things come and go.
No feeling,
No sight,
No sound is ever really the same.
Nothing is stagnant.
It may appear stagnant from time to time,
But actually it's in a constant flux and flow.
And it's only when we pick up something and try to grasp it and hold it,
In the process of identifying it as something we like or dislike or want or don't want,
As me or mine,
That's when the problems start.
But even when we're caught in this stress and suffering of pushing and pulling anything in the phenomenal world,
Have you noticed something within you is aware of that?
And this awareness is what we need to start recognising.
This awareness is always there,
Even as things come and go and change.
The awareness stays the same.
The quiet knowing,
The wise sage within us all.
The quiet knowing,
The wise sage within us all.
Now you don't need to go searching for it like an object or a thing or a possession.
It's nothing like that.
It transcends things,
Because any thing,
Its very nature,
Is to change.
So this awareness is beyond form,
Beyond shape,
Colour.
Any attribute,
But we recognise it.
Not through the mind,
Not through thinking about it,
But through our intuitive wisdom,
Which you might say resides in the heart.
There's no mistaking it,
Because it's our very nature.
And there are certain qualities that we can recognise when we learn to abide authentically in awareness.
There's the quality of peace,
Of calm,
Of stillness.
Of openness and acceptance.
It may give rise to feelings of bliss or ecstasy,
But we learn just to allow these sorts of waves to come and go too.
Not getting excited or puffed up with pride or thinking we've achieved something great.
Awareness is not an achievement.
Awareness is not personal.
It's not a self.
It transcends any of those limitations.
Awareness is simply what we are in our true being,
Over and above all the changing phenomena.
And yet it contains all the changing phenomena.
Just like the wave is not separate from the ocean and can never be separate from the ocean.
So everything within our experience arises and falls like the waves within the ocean of awareness.
Are you able to recognise this?
To intuit this without thinking about it?
Without becoming excited about it?
Or trying somehow to grab hold of it?
If we try to conceptualise or cling to this awareness,
We're on the wrong path.
Rather,
It's a giving up of all false beliefs,
Of all concepts,
Ideas,
Imaginations,
And intentions.
And in the process of giving up these dream habits,
We're left simply with bare and naked awareness.
Not a thing,
Not another me.
We recognise it as an empty cognizance.
It's empty in the sense that it has no substance,
No fixed entity.
And yet there's a brightness there,
A lucidity,
A knowing,
A knowing that goes beyond thinking.
It's zero Let it dry.
A bunch of words that have appeared in my consciousness that I'm offering to you as a pointer pointing to something beyond the words beyond the changing phenomena.
So the words are not the truth.
The truth can only be found in your own direct experience of recognizing and knowing this awareness.
The same awareness that resides within all beings and the practice of meditation requires us to recognize awareness.
Practice resting in it more and more in both formal sitting and in every moment of our lives until we come to fully stabilize in it.
And we learn along the way,
Hopefully,
Where we might be going astray.
So if there's any sense of striving,
Of trying too hard,
Of trying to get something,
Wake up to that.
See that sort of conditioning,
The achiever,
The competitor,
The one who's not good enough until they get something or beat somebody else.
This is all the stuff that we need to wake up to.
Waking up,
It lets go and we simply notice our own natural state of awareness.
