[audio:MM-Thoughts-Emotions.mp3]

As a witness to your conscious mind, you are continuously seeing & letting go….

In this meditation,we are going to shift our purposeful attention from the breath and our body to streams of thoughts and emotions present in our conscious awareness… Again, we are sitting or lying and just breathing into the present moment. Stopping our doing and just being here and now- awake in timeless awareness.

Let’s begin with attending to our stream of thinking… little secretions in the mind that come and go. And seeing if we can just detect them as thoughts… known, held, seen, or felt in awareness as thoughts. It could be thoughts about anything… the past… the future… not having any thoughts. The point is not to look for thoughts, but just to be aware of them if and when they come by. You may notice when watching your thoughts that they tend to have an emotional charge or valence associated with them. Some are very pleasant thoughts… some may be very anxiety producing thoughts, depressing, or even frightening, etc. Here we are treating all thoughts as equal.We are not particularly interested in their content, although awareness can know the content. What’s important here is that we are not getting sucked into the content or the emotion.

Here & now we are simply being aware of thoughts as events in the field of awareness like bubbles flowing up in a stream. Resting here in the awareness of thinking- and of any emotions that may come through- whether they are on the sad side or the scary or angry side- or happy or joyful side. Allowing the awareness to hold it all… thoughts and feelings as if they were just objects- not taking it all so personally. Just being the knowing and resting in the awareness as the thoughts and emotions come and go like waves dancing on the sea. Being and knowing without getting caught up in the swell of thought or emotion.

The awareness being already free… not plagued by the thoughts… not tormented by them… just knowing and settling into the stillness, spaciousness, and silence that awareness already is. This is not an easy practice… not to get carried away by your stream of thoughts or emotion. So if you do get carried away down stream, not to worry for as a non-judging witness you are simply watching them unfold- attending without taking it personally. Over and over again you’re just resting in the awareness of what’s happening here and now in your conscious awareness.

If you don’t take your thoughts or emotions personally, they won’t take you so personally. And there is freedom right inside this moment- this sitting or lying here- this being human- this knowing that is bigger than thinking- this befriending of the mind and the heart as they arethis befriending of silence and stillness. Moment by moment knowing what’s on your mind… moment by moment knowing, feeling what is in your heart- right here & right now.

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