Minding our Minds

"We can lead our life so as to become more awake to who we are and what we’re doing rather than trying to improve or change or get rid of who we are or what we’re doing. The key is to wake up, to become more alert, more inquisitive and curious about ourselves.” Pema Chödrön

“Awareness itself heals." Fritz Perls (1893–1970)

The above statements, by Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön, and psychiatrist Fritz Perls, are at odds with our strong tendency to feel that we ourselves & our present circumstances are not enough: not happy / good / healthy / famous / rich / perfect enough, regardless of what is or isn't going on. So we're constantly striving to escape the here & now, into a different (even worse!) past or future.

So one part of our mind - we can call it the "thinking mind" - is chronically dissatisfied & craves a different self & circumstances. We're so familiar with this aspect of our consciousness, that we wrongly assume it as our actual identity.

But another part of our mind is very different, so different that we hardly know it at all. We can call this aspect "awareness." Awareness is anchored in the present moment and peace & equanimity prevail - there's no anxiety to be or to have something different.***

This aspect of our consciousness is also aware of what the thinking mind is doing, including when it slips off into the past or future. However, as soon as we are aware of thinking, we inhabit the aware aspect of our consciousness, are in the the present moment, at peace & eqaunimous. We are either lost in thought or present in awareness - we can't be both at the same time.

The subject of thinking usually refers to past events or thoughts of the future. But even the thinking itself, and awareness of thinking, in fact everything that's real, can only possibly occur in the present. Nothing is happening in the past nor in the future. Everything IS happening right now, right now, right now - always in real time.

"Meditation comes alive through a growing capacity to release our habitual entanglement in the stories and plans, conflicts and worries that make up the small sense of self, and to rest in awareness. In meditation we do this simply by acknowledging the moment-to-moment changing conditions—the pleasure and pain, the praise and blame, the litany of ideas and expectations that arise. Without identifying with them, we can rest in the awareness itself, beyond conditions, and experience ... our natural lightness of heart. Developing this capacity to rest in awareness nourishes concentration, which stabilizes and clarifies the mind, and wisdom, that sees things as they are." Jack Kornfield https://www.lionsroar.com/a-mind-like-sky/

*** Most people who practice Mindfulness (MBSR) are kind, ethical people, mostly in helping professions, so that they have what Buddhist teachers consider basic requirements for the practice of mindfulness: generosity (dana) and ethics (sila). Without these, practicing mindfulness has little benefit or may actually cause harm.

Consider a computer hacker, hit man or stock fraudster practicing mindfulness in order to become more effective & less stressed in their "profession." Imagine the effect of seeing themselves with much greater clarity during meditation, knowing that this very process is, at first, surprisingly traumatic for the majority of kind, ethical meditators?