Our minds process thousands of thoughts every day and each thought competes to dominate our awareness. Thoughts are powerful and they proliferate endlessly. We get trapped in a fragmented way of being by clinging to thought-based sense of self. Often thoughts are about bad or sad things that happened in the past or things that we are fearful or angry about. Sometimes they are projections into the future.
Our identities get immersed in perspectives that are just fragments of truth and sometimes are not true at all - they are assumptions. Thought (and the belief patterns that come with thought) is relative - not absolute nor complete. I saw a billboard at Kahn & Keville Tires some years ago that said: "Worry is interest paid on a debt you may never owe."
This dynamic causes us to be blocked from real awareness most of the time. When a stimulus comes our way, we react to it as if it was an incoming missile. We have our thought shields up to protect our vulnerable insides.
In order for us to experience relief from the turmoil of the problem-based thought mind, we have to step back from total reliance on thought. We must develop an awareness of how thoughts come and go, trying to dominate mind space. Our impulse is to ride the emotion that comes with thought. "That is me," says the ego self "and I must defend myself."
Of course, thought is a useful thing. "I think, therefore I am," and all that. But if we suspend reliance on the thought mind, how can be function in the daily grind of life? Challenges still come at us in the present and we deal with them with a sense of presence of mind rather than a false sense of self.
We still have the ability to respond and even respond quickly to stimuli. Suspending the problem-based thought mind simply frees us up to handle challenges in a more even-tempered manner. We no longer submit to the impulse of reaction and we are no longer operating just from a place of fear, anger or sadness.
Bringing presence to each moment opens us up to the possibility of feeling joy much more, even in the face of challenges and pain. Presence allows us to play simultaneously the role of actor and observer.
"Oh, I see that there is anger here," notes the observer to the actor, "you have a choice of how to respond to it." This is a rather merciful alternative to the anger identity that most of us have in the moment when we perceive injustice or threat.
So why does awareness matter? It matters because it gives us better choices, more space and freedom from conditioned patterns that tend to get us in trouble. Awareness allows us to see thought as a relative thing rather than the only thing.
This post was written as I prepared to lead a pair of stress-reduction retreats at the end of April and the end of May, 2018. I had been listening to a set of audio discs of Eckhart Tolle. More than 15 years ago he talked about "Becoming a Teacher of Presence" and bringing awareness to the service of others. In some cases, I used his own words and in others I interpreted what he said.