MEDITATION
The Art of Observing Your Mind — Create Inner Peace and Happiness at Anytime
Your mind can be a limitless source of suffering or a fountain of peace. Sever the tie and be free of your mind’s power over you.
Do you imagine the Universe is agitated? Go to the desert at night and look at the stars. This should answer the question.” — Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
I love this quote. I also love the desert and observing the night sky. It has always grounded me in a sense of insignificance and immense peace.
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When looking at the stars, everything is in order.
No stress. No hurry. No time. No problems. Only balance, expansion, transmutation, and perfection. The death of a star is but the birth of something new. An explosion beyond our comprehension, just a blip in the night sky.
Most of us can’t just up and leave for a desert retreat to bathe in the silence and tranquility of nature at its most peaceful, and we don’t have to.
Meditation is not all that complicated unless you make it. Sit down, shut up, and observe your mind without engaging with the thoughts, images, and sounds that emerge. That’s it.
The more you practice, the easier and faster you will experience the tranquility of inner silence. This moment of inner peace, derived from the absence of thoughts and inner voices, can guide us toward the truth. It can point us in the direction of the actual problem.
The source of all our troubles is not the outside world, as we falsely believe— it’s our mind.
Peace is always within our reach. Just a few breaths away. In the silence of our mind.
For those among us prone to overthinking and with an overactive mind, our escapes have usually been in the outside world. Sports, adrenaline, sex, movies, music, or sometimes worse — drugs and alcohol.
All indulging in these activities has ever achieved was quieting the mind. For a few brief moments, we were no longer tortured by our inner voices, images, and imagination.
This is an ultimate realization. You weren’t running away from your problems and from the world; you were always running away from your mind!
Unfortunately, it is much easier to find a peaceful, tranquil, and silent place under the stars than to find peace and quiet in our minds. We will know no peace unless we have learned to tame our rampant minds.
First, we must understand that we are not our minds.
We use the mind like we use our bodies, our hands, and our tongues. This understanding of the nature of our minds is essential if we are to free ourselves from the tyranny of the mind.
- If we were our mind, wouldn’t we always be in control of it?
- Can you demand silence in your mind for a few hours, and it will be silent? Go ahead — put it to the test.
- Have you noticed unwanted images and conversations running on autopilot in your mind?
- Is it not true that it sometimes seems the mind has “a will” of its own?
Second, we must accept that we cannot force our minds to do anything lasting.
We can concentrate on something with full attention for a brief period, but once we lose focus, our mind tends to wander off and do its own thing. If you’ve ever tried meditating, you’re all too familiar with the problem of quieting your mind or staying focused on some desired object. Why is that?
Your mind has been fed information and input throughout your life.
It’s like a program that has been learning and gathering information, right or wrong, and runs these programs independently. You can program it to some extent, but most programming will remain unconscious.
The Artificial Intelligence models of late operate similarly. They are exposed to enormous quantities of data from which they learn. When unleashed or commanded, they then act based on that data. They don’t think independently, though they sometimes appear to be. They don’t have original ideas, but they can extrapolate from large data sets and compose plans, essays, novels, articles, research papers, and conversations that make it seem like there is sentient thinking behind the screen.
- Your mind has been exposed to extensive data sets all of your life.
- It will then repeatedly replay those ideas, conversations, and images on its own.
- No original thought here, just repeated patterns being played on autopilot. Neurons are firing off, and random patterns emerge.
We can interrupt this automated programming with our deliberation, focus, and action, but as soon as we stop, the mind returns to its original programming.
This lets us know one crucial thing — we can only control the mind while focusing.
As soon as we wander off, as soon as we relax, we lose control of the mind.
The only way, then, to make a lasting change is by reprogramming the core programs of the mind. And that can be done deliberately, but it takes time and effort. It cannot be done overnight, and the truth is, it is one of the more challenging things any of us will ever attempt. There is a way to circumvent this problem but it still requires practice, understanding, and focus.
Become the observer of your mind — a witnessing awareness.
You must satisfy three primary conditions to achieve this:
- Understand that you are not your mind; you only use it. It is a part of you, but not you.
- Don’t try to force change upon the mind directly, fighting a losing battle and increasing the problem of an overactive mind.
- Allow the mind to play out its programs without engaging with them, and let it settle down on its own.
“By letting it go, it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try. The world is beyond the winning.” — Lao Tzu
When you go to the desert at night and observe the stars, you notice how peaceful and quiet it all seems. The Universe at large is content, perfect, and tranquil. This tranquility, perfection, and peacefulness are inherent in all things, including our minds. We merely need to allow it to surface.
We must learn to observe the mind as we observe the night sky. As an outside observer, a witnessing awareness, unattached and unbothered. We allow the mind to play the images and voices it wants to, but we don’t follow, engage, or fight them. We simply observe and let them be.
One way to illustrate this is to imagine observing a river.
As you are observing the river, you notice a refrigerator floating by. You could engage with this image by pondering the why, who, and how of that refrigerator in the river. Alternatively, you could allow it to flow by and refocus your attention on observing the river.
Then a large log would float by, and you would notice it, see it for what it is, but again choose to ignore it. You would revert your attention back to the river’s flow, on just being there, by the river, taking a peripheral view, without any particular focus.
The river constantly tries to grab your attention with random things, as does your mind. But you needn’t engage with it. If you don’t, the river will flow these things past you on its own.
After a while, when you are firmly situated in the seat of awareness, being a non-attached observer of your mind, you will witness a miracle.
The mind will find peace and silence all on its own. Even the most agitated minds seek to be at peace when left alone. The inner programs will eventually run out, and there will be silence, tranquility, and peace like you’ve never experienced before.
The more you delve into understanding the separateness of your mind and yourself, the easier it will be to stay unattached and unbothered by what it does.
The images and conversations in your mind aren’t true, necessary, or meaningful - let them go.
You don’t have to engage them; you won’t miss anything important if you ignore them.
The mind’s activity is agitated by your involvement, either fighting it or going along with whatever it presents. It feeds on your attention and engagement, not unlike some other systems out there.
Once you retract your attention and emotionally detach, it will lose its power over you and it will seize to rant.
The mind will not eternally rant and rampage all on its own. The natural state of the mind and the Universe are stillness and peace.
When you start observing your mind, it will first feel odd and challenging, but with time, it will become completely logical, natural, and effortless. Not only will you enjoy a more silent, peaceful mind, but you won’t be bothered or affected when it goes through its preprogrammed rampages.
Because now you know that you are not your mind, and whatever it keeps replaying isn’t some truth, nor do you need to engage with it.
It will feel like watching a movie, and you just won’t care anymore. It’s just a movie. Nothing more, nothing less.
Imagine your mind as an empty cinema theater.
Go ahead, close your eyes, and see the empty screen in your mind’s eye. You’re sitting a few rows back and enjoying the show. Whatever the mind is trying to show you, images, sounds, and feelings are all happening on that giant screen in front of you.
They’re not real. It’s just a movie. You can choose to observe it and get involved with the story, or you can ignore it completely.
For this exercise, you want to distance yourself from the screen and the content being played. You are not your mind. These images and sounds are not some holy truth or your essence.
It’s just random noise being played out by your mind. It doesn’t matter, and you don’t care.
Every time the mind gets ahold of your attention, dragging you along for the ride, notice it, smile, and disengage. Refocus your attention on the blank screen of your mind. On the emptiness and silence.
Keep observing, noticing, smiling, and disengaging. You’ll notice that it gets significantly easier with practice. The act of observing the mind intentionally will release you from its grip. This is the power of understanding the nature of your mind and your relationship to it.
It will also become glaringly obvious that you have suffered needlessly for all of your life, going along with your mind’s imagery and dialogs. No more!
This is true freedom! This is the path to inner peace!
It is within your grasp, no matter who you are, where you are, and what you are like.
The key to inner peace lies in the mind. It cannot be forced, but it can be achieved once you realize that it doesn’t mean anything, isn’t real, can’t hurt you, and if left alone, it will calm down and settle into the most beautiful silence ever. Yes, even your crazy little monkey mind!
With a bit of practice, you might just find yourself free of depression, anxiety, anger, fear, overthinking, insomnia, and the need to escape your mind.
Someday soon, being alone in your room won’t be a terrifying thought but a peaceful, even pleasant one. You will yearn for it, not run away from it.
This will indicate that you have mastered your mind by understanding your relationship and learned to smile at its rants instead of going with them on the rollercoaster of emotions they have usually led you on.
You will have become the observer, no longer a puppet of your mind!
A master of your mind, no longer a slave. Stress, fear, and anxiety will no longer tower over you.
They exist in the mind, and when you detach and can smile at your mind’s ramblings, they’ll no longer hold any power over you. If that isn’t something worth learning, I genuinely don’t know what is.
One day soon, you won’t need to go to the desert to enjoy the tranquility, silence, and peace; instead, you will experience it whenever you close your eyes and just be where ever you are.
I have had to learn to tame my mind the hard way, and it almost killed me. Now that I deeply comprehend the importance of understanding the mind and working with it, not against it, I have found that our happiness depends solely on our minds.
I have dedicated my life to exploring the mind and, to this day, cannot find a more worthy cause.
May you be at peace, friends. Inner and outer.
