Where is the you that looks out at the world? Behind the eyes? In some dark spot near the front of the skull? A little person peeking out? At the place where all the senses meet? The opposite end and nexus of the fingertips, nose, tongue, ears, eyes, skin? Is it an echo? “Me…me…me….” A re-appearing tag attached to so many fast-moving thoughts and feelings and sensations that the tag seems permanent? Thought-me. Touch-me. Emotion-me. A mental reaction so automatic it’s almost invisible? Is there a you that exists independent of these passing sensations? When you aren’t thinking about you, where are you? Are you there between thoughts? Are you there in deep sleep? Do you stop and start again? Can you stop now?
Tag: mindfulness
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The most important thing is the quality of your consciousness.
The most important thing is always the quality of your consciousness: the total effect of everything that’s popping in and out of your world at any moment. Thoughts, emotions, your surroundings, physical sensations, everything. Much of the contents of consciousness is voluntary. It’s easy to get lost in self-imposed pressures, and for those pressures to drape over the dome of awareness like a heavy blanket. You get so tangled in a forest of to-dos and shoulds and pressures. Then you might have a moment when we look out at the world, at afternoon sun slanting onto the sidewalk or a group of leafless trees stretching into the blue sky. And suddenly, the visual sensations trigger a pleasant memory from years ago that floods in, and the color-tone of your entire world shifts. Expansion following by relief. This is the fragility of our world. We all know it; the smallest input can stain everything else in experience. So guard the gates of your senses vigilantly. Curate. Refuse to pollute your mind-space, and the world will bloom.